Brookville, located in the seaside village of Skerries, is a house with quite a few talking points.
First off, its address at 22 Holmpatrick places it conveniently at the end of the main road in the village, but just far enough from the comings and goings to allow residents to nip out in just a bathing suit for a swim at the end of the garden lane.
The current residents, Tristan Fagan-Guimond and his wife Sandra, run their internet business Big Dog Digital just up the road. Big Dog, whose clients include Ryanair and Glanbia, has won numerous awards, most notably for its TracknStop software, which operates in 200 countries.
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Brookville was purchased in 2007 by Tristan’s mother Marianne Fagan – the family business of painters and decorators was based at Wood Quay for four generations prior to the relocation of Dublin City Council’s offices to that site.
Maple flooring
Marianne totally overhauled the property, adding an extension to the rear and sourcing period furnishings from Wilsons Salvage Yard; the Edwardian shower fittings in the main bathroom originally graced the Ritz Hotel in London, while the narrow-strip maple flooring which runs through the extension – and was also reworked into herringbone parquet in the dining room – came from a dance hall in Belfast.
A small sepia photograph in the kitchen shows the original owner of Brookville, a local headmistress, Mary Sheils, who built the house after purchasing the land from Lord Holmpatrick in 1912. The garden was much larger in Ms Sheils's tenure – owners of the property in the early noughties built two houses in the rear garden.
What remains is a city-sized garden which opens out onto a lane to the beach. At high tide it is one minute’s walk from the kitchen island to the waves. At low tide one can walk all the way to Shenick Island and at night local fishing boats light up the waters while trawling for razor fish. The village is noted for its prawns served up in local eateries such as Stoop Your Head and Blue Bar.
Sound system
The garden, with an integrated sound system, was designed by Tristan’s stepfather
Jeff Lee
, whose company Lee & Associates designed the Pentagon Memorial Garden in Washington DC and redesigned Mecca in Saudi Arabia. Lee and Fagan-Guimond are in the process of restoring a brownstone near the White House in Washington DC and have placed the Skerries house on the market through estate agent
Lisney
with an asking price of €850,000.
The house, which stands at 190sq m, retains all its period features – all the sash windows have been restored as have the fireplaces. In its current layout, the house has five bedrooms, including an ensuite in the converted attic, and the original diningroom is used as a bedroom, which new owners can easily reinstate as a reception room.
Concertina doors
The extension, designed by architect Mark Kelly, is really the showstopper of the house, and can accommodate over 100 guests if the concertina doors to the garden are open.
There is something quite magical about Skerries. It is close to Dublin but feels a million miles away; the Frosties club meet at 11am each day to swim in the sea all year round.
It is nice to imagine the new owners of 22 Holmpatrick will retain the photograph of Mary Sheils on the kitchen wall, so she can witness yet another family enjoying the house she built a century before.
