It was the name of the Foxrock house which first caught the eye of the owner who bought it after auction in 1993 for about £390,000 (€495,197): he is from Kinvara, Co Galway, and the Edwardian redbrick on half an acre near Foxrock village was called Kinvara. Then in 2006, a year after selling a business, he and his wife embarked on a major €1.3 million expansion of the already large 279sq m (3,000sq ft) house.
“I needed an office and my wife wanted an art room,” he says. On one side they built a wraparound conservatory that accommodated a studio and a sunroom. On the other side, they added a self-contained wing with a facade that echoes the double-fronted bay-windowed facade of the original house. Architects James A Keaney Associates oversaw the project, which also included reroofing the whole house and installing geothermal heating throughout.
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Now the 530sq m (5,700sq ft) detached six-bed is for sale through DNG seeking €3.15 million. A video tour of the property shows that little expense was spared in revamping and fitting out Kinvara, from the wide entrance hall with a fireplace, polished timber floor and cantilevered staircase rising from the middle of the hall to the study with a desk on a raised platform overlooking the front through a wide bay window.
A timber-framed porch typical of Edwardian period homes opens into the front hall. Downstairs accommodation includes a drawing room on one side of the entrance hall and a formal dining room with a polished timber floor and deep green walls on the other. The dual aspect drawing room has a bay window to the front and a rectangular bay at the side; it opens into a family room and from there into the studio and sunroom at the rear of the house.
The dining room opens into the kitchen-breakfast room. The kitchen has a vaulted and beamed ceiling with Velux windows, black marble countertops and island unit and a big green Aga; it opens into the travertine-floored sunroom which, like the conservatory, opens onto the rear patio.
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Upstairs there is a spacious landing with doors to a veranda overlooking the garden. There are six bedrooms in all, four of them are en suite, all with fitted wardrobes: four, including the main bedroom, are in the original part of the house. Another bedroom in the new wing of the house, next to the study, has a Juliet balcony and there is a sixth en suite bedroom in the attic. The family bathroom has tongue-and-groove panelled walls and a free-standing slipper bath.
Outside there are large landscaped lawns at the front and rear of the house, a lily pond in the back garden as well as apple and plum trees. There’s plenty of room for parking.
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The geothermal and underfloor heating has halved the home’s energy bills, says the owner – it now has a C1 BER rating. Kinvara is near the junction of Westminster and Torquay Roads, a short walk from Foxrock village, and a short drive from the M50.