There’s something very special about secret spots. Take No 6 Winton Road, just off Ranelagh’s Appian Way. Instead of having a grand facade and imposing stone steps like its period neighbours, it’s discovered via a little redbrick arch, and a door that opens to an unexpected and very sweet patio path. Beyond that is a 195sq m (2,098sq ft) house of enormous charm – perfect for downsizers, upsizers, as a family home, or even a very chic pied-à-terre – which is how it started out for the present owners.
The house was built in the late 1960s, to the side of No 7, after numbers 1 to 5 were knocked down to build the adjacent Fitzwilliam Tennis Club. The arrangement suits No 6 very well, as the house has taken a small bite out of its neighbour, meaning you get an unexpected dose of period features with a bedroom on what would have been the return of the next-door house. In fact the entire house is an excellently successful mix of styles and periods.
The current owners’ parents bought the house as a townhouse, handy for when they came up from the country. Later, the owner and his brothers lived there through their college years (parties are remembered with a smile both rueful and nostalgic), and more recently it has been an immensely flexible home to the owner, his wife and their five home-schooled children.
"Like any house, it changes depending on your needs," the owner says. "There's been seven of us here, living and working from home." We're sitting in the large country-style kitchen, with its enormous Aga, warm red, salvaged floor tiles and French windows to the patio. Home-schooling, I'm told, is growing in Ireland, and there are supportive groups, so that the kids still get a chance to socialise outside the home. Fifty of them are heading to the All-Ireland Club Championships on the day I visit.
Dual-aspect
Loving the location so much meant the owners also adapted the house over time. A double-height contemporary-style atrium was introduced, opening up the entrance, and a garden room was added. This was the owner’s study, then became a schoolroom, but could be a fourth bedroom, depending on your needs. There is a very grand and lovely dual-aspect sitting room on the first floor, done to a period style. It gives a grandstand view of the tennis at Fitzwilliam.
The other three bedrooms are upstairs, two on the first floor, with the family bathroom, and the master is up again. It’s a super room, with a dressing area and en suite. “I love waking up and hearing the tennis players,” the owner says, remarking also on how peaceful the area is.
“What we’ve loved about the road is it does feel like a little country lane. Winton Road is one-way, and the tennis club owns the strip of land opposite, which they maintain with grass and trees, so in the summer I’ll sit out on the wall, watching the kids learn to ride their bikes, and it feels so safe,” he says.
There's off-street parking at the front, and the house has been so beloved, that the owners had architects deBlacam and Meagher design an extension, and planning permission was awarded. But before they embarked on the new building project, another house to fall in love with came their way, so now number 6 is for sale with Sherry FitzGerald for €1.25 million. The plans are available for those wishing to extend, but it could also be perfect as it is.
