The owner of 49 Montpelier Parade bought the austere-looking, three-storey, over-garden-level house in the popular Monkstown terrace in 2002. The property at that time was being sold in two lots – the house, which was in need of considerable renovation, and a part of the long back garden with mews potential. Wanting to keep the entire intact, he bought both lots, paying €815,000 in total. He wasn’t interested in starting on building a mews, although permission was at one stage granted. Instead, he planted the southwest-facing 120ft (37sq m) back garden once the major renovation was complete.
The home has 222sq m (2,400sq ft), with three bedrooms, four reception rooms and a large kitchen/breakfast room opening out the garden. It was an upscale boom-time renovation from the new roof down to reworking the garden level. As for fittings, the country-style kitchen is Chalon, with top appliances including the serious cook’s favourite, a Lacanche range.
When the house was built in 1800 the first owners would have used the front-facing first-floor room that spans the width of the house as a drawing room. The current owner did the same, and the room – with its trio of sash windows, white marble fireplace and a polished timber floor – is an elegant space. An ensuite bedroom on this floor has a window over the rear garden.
The best views are from the window of a top-floor bathroom with sunken bath, which looks clear across rooftops to the Dublin mountains. Two arched windows on the turn of the stairs give similar Three Rock Mountain views, as well as a great deal of light.
The main, second-floor bedroom is front facing, with three half-sized windows and a cast-iron fireplace. The third bedroom is to the rear and also has a cast-iron fireplace.
At hall level there is the traditional layout of the dining room opening into a sitting room.
The owner put the house up for sale in 2012 – which in hindsight was around the bottom of the market – and it didn’t sell, despite a price cut from €1.25 million to €1.05 million, before it was taken off the market. As he was moving away, he continued to use the house on visits back to Dublin before renting it out.
Montpelier Terrace is set back from the road, with a strip of greenery providing a useful shield from the traffic. Number 49 has pedestrian access to the rear and parking is on-street.
Now that this level of the market has picked up considerably, he has once again placed the striking-looking, well-located, renovated, Ber-exempt, period property for sale, this time through Colliers, asking for €1.5 million.
