As you cross Cowper Road and approach the top of Palmerston Road, you notice the changing tenor of the traffic: cars thin out and the 140 bus begins its short journey into town; pedestrians and cyclists go to and from the Luas and the local shops; dogs pull their humans around the redbrick roads and children scoot homewards from the park.
This part of Palmerston Road was developed in 1880; the first eight houses on the east side, as far as Temple Gardens, are named individually and numbered 42A-42H, followed by the first four Temple Villas. While 10 of their neighbours across the road have sold since 2011, number 2 Temple Villas has had only two owners in the past 64 years and that time has been divided equally; after 32 years, the current owners, Gerald and Jean, are seeking to downsize and have placed their home on the market through Mullery O’Gara with an asking price of €3.35 million.
Set well back from the road, on a deceptively wide plot set in lawn and gravel and sheltered by trees and hedges, the house is framed by a feathery white wisteria. It is large, at 260sq m (2,800sq ft), but comfortable, with soaring ceilings and generous halls and landings adding to the sense of space.
Light fills the stairs, coloured by leaded window panels, and the rear reception room, to the left off the hall, gets morning sun through a tall sash window. Here, as in the hall and the front room, there are delicate ceiling roses and fine cornices in high relief; you can appreciate the craftsmanship from a better vantage point on the stairs.
The wide drawing room has a white marble fireplace and a deep bay window; when they moved here, says Gerald, the furniture from their previous house felt like dolls’ furniture. They bought in June 1990 and moved in that November after rewiring, installing heating and carrying out some essential repairs. A protected structure, it is Ber-exempt.
Across the hall, in the side return, is a guest bathroom papered in a gentle William Morris pattern; down six steps is the heart of the home, a sunny, welcoming kitchen with the dining table under a long pitched rooflight in a small extension built in 1997. Wooden units line three sides and form an island – and then Jean points out “my darling Aga”, a gleaming black model tucked under the raised granite surround.
There’s storage under the stairs and more in the return, where a utility room has space for a big fridge and a pull-down drying rack under a Velux.
French doors open from the kitchen to the garden, also accessed from the utility and the covered side passage, and a garden table and chairs sit in a beautifully blended-in, brick-edged patio. The sunny garden is exceptionally private and quiet, with huge beech and birch trees – and Jean’s favourite, an ancient cherry that flowers twice a year. At the end, there’s a gazebo and another seating area set for evening sun.
Upstairs, the back bedrooms continue the feeling of privacy, with only the early summer tree canopy visible from their windows. The house is three-storey here at the rear, with one bedroom on each floor of the return (the top one serves as Gerald’s study) and three on the main landing. The two at the front are connected by an original door and while the smaller is currently a dressingroom it could become a large en suite; there are two bathrooms on this level.
The Palmerston pace might slow further if Dublin City Council approves the planning application, by its own Culture, Recreation and Economic Services department, for the “alteration, refurbishment and change of use of the existing... council depot building [an unremarkable 1970s structure] from a part depot building to a public tearoom” with an outside area sheltered by a retractable canopy, and accessible toilets. As it is, there are endless amenities in the nearby villages of Rathmines, Rathgar and Ranelagh.
