The Kildare countryside at Elverstown is green and rolling. It has ancient trees, streams and pasturelands. The vendors of The Granary "fell in love" with the house and location when they first saw, then bought, what was a seriously derelict manor farmhouse with land in 1997. All's changed there. The five-bed country house with mews on 3.04 hectares (7.5 acres) is now a replicated, larger version of the original 1740s building on the site. A kitchen garden is revived, pastures restored and a veritable forest of new planting and trees are maturing nicely. Houses with this much land rarely come up for sale in this part of Co Kildare.
There's history too: the original house was burnt down and rebuilt in the early 1800s by a Mr Giltrap, local MP at a time when only 300 people were entitled to vote for the county's members of parliament. He rebuilt it with a fashionable Victorian garden. The current vendors' subsequent rebuilding means that the view of the house on approach is exactly as it was then.
Agent Sherry FitzGerald is seeking €1.15 million for the 391sq m (4,209sq ft) house with mews, land, cultivated gardens and outhouses.
“Our children had an idyllic childhood here,” the vendors say, “but they’re gravitating towards Dublin and we all want to be together.” So they’re selling, and it’s not easy: “There’s a lot of love gone into the property. We never thought we’d move.”
Constructing a replica
To begin with they knocked down the farmhouse, staying in the already functioning mews as they came and went at weekends while constructing a replica with extensions to the side and rear. They planted more than 500 beech trees, "to form a tunnel over the approach avenue in summer. We put down hardwood floors, put in Villeroy and Boch sanitary ware. We keep rescue/old ponies so built loose boxes, put shelters in every field, rotated paddocks, built a pond and stone jetty. We rebuilt the walled kitchen garden behind the house too."
The main house drawingroom, with a wood-beamed ceiling, recessed windows and open fire, leads to the garden. A rustic-style kitchen with large Aga opens to a breakfastroom with French windows leading to the walled garden. Upstairs, the main bedroom occupies a separate suite with dressingroom and en suite. The others are off a mezzanine, as is a family bathroom.
The stone-cut mews, in need of an upgrade, has three bedrooms, livingroom, kitchen/breakfastroom and bathroom in an 83sq m (893sq ft) floor space.
The Granary is 4.3km from Blessington and less than an hour from Dublin.
