Spacious, with lots of light and the kind of leafy gardens you expect in one of Dublin’s greener suburbs, Santa Maria’s art deco style has clearly been appreciated by owners since it was built in the 1930s.
Quirks and curiosities abound: a porthole window in a hallway niche, a narrow, hidden cupboard on the first landing, mosaic tiling on the front doorstep.
One of the many so-called “dream homes” built in Mount Merrion by John Kenny, the Dublin builder of the mid-1920s and 1930, Santa Maria has been extended to give it a 2,400sq ft (223sq m) floor space.
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In a layout that makes it an ideal family home, there are four/five bedrooms, three reception rooms, a large games/playroom and an L-shaped kitchen/breakfast room/family area.
Agents Beirne & Wise, who are looking after the private treaty sale, are quoting €975,000.
John Kenny built Santa Maria for his daughter, which accounts for a wider than usual site. Though the present owner recently moved out after a 20-year residency, the house doesn’t have an empty feel.
Wide bay windows
Its art deco pedigree is immediately apparent in the white stucco facade and wide bay windows, and is evidenced internally in the stylised, squared architraves around doors, in high- placed door handles, smoothly rounded banisters and a particularly fine mahogany surround fireplace in the livingroom.
The kitchen/breakfast/ family room extends from the original kitchen, stretches the width of the rear of the house and overlooks the rear garden.
The front-facing drawingroom has a wide bow window that mirrors another in the main bedroom overhead.
A back-kitchen, or rear lobby, gives access to what could be a TV room or home office, a toilet with shower, and a long room by the side of the house large enough to be many things: games room, teenage den, granny flat.
The four bedrooms and a small room with sloped ceiling, which could become a dressing room or en suite for the main bedroom, are off the first-floor landing.
A garden workshop/studio could also have many uses; as it is, sitting at the end of the old-style garden, it has great presence.
The garden has a large patio, pathways that circle and converge, poplars and apple trees and gooseberry, rose and lavender bushes.
