Enniskerry home has all the essentials for country living

Sheltered and welcoming, with gardens to warm the most urban of hearts, and a forested backdrop, Adrigole ticks a lot of ideal country-home boxes. Built in the early 1950s, and the vendor’s family home for the past 27 years, it has served its occupants well, and has the atmosphere to prove it.

The lay-out allows for both family life and privacy, and there is a wrap-around, half-acre of high-hedged gardens with tennis court. At about 200 metres from the heart of Enniskerry village, it also has location in its favour.

All of the above are features the vendor wanted in a house when he and his wife paid £92,000 for Adrigole in 1989.

“We’d moved house eight or nine times during my working life,” he says, “and wanted to live in the country when I retired. We loved it here, being able to look out and see trees and shrubs instead of chimney pots and get everything we needed in the village. It became a real family home.”

The hard-surface tennis court to the front was put down by Bruno Griffin, the original owner. "A tennis fanatic," the vendor explains, "he built the tennis court first, then the house. I played there myself, a bit, then the kids used to play, then the grandchildren. Now they've all moved on and I'm moving too."

A decent 160sq m (1,722sq ft) over two levels, Adrigole has four bedrooms (the main en suite), three reception rooms, kitchen/breakfastroom and family bathroom. There is an outhouse and three storage sheds. Agent Lisney is asking €595,000.

Adrigole would benefit from modernising, though living essentials are all solidly in place. The natural setting is a soothing backdrop as you walk the gardens or sit with door open in the sunroom. Currently in use as a laundry/utility room, it has a tiled floor and three walls of wood framed windows. The L-shaped kitchen/breakfastroom is well fitted and overlooks a lawn, beds of roses, fuchsia, high hedges and the forest beyond.

The living/diningroom, from where there is a patio door to the garden, has a fireplace with brass canopy. Also on this ground floor there are two bedrooms – one is used as a study, the other is the principal and has a large en suite bathroom. Two upstairs bedrooms have sloped ceilings; one is long and large with two velux and two windows.

There is parking for several cars and, if planning permission allows, development potential.