Dublin’s Camden Quarter is a fizzing mix of hip eateries and late-night clubs where the main thoroughfare is more congested at 3am than it is during morning rush hour.
Yet one block off the main drag can feel blissfully quiet and far more removed from the action than it geographically lies.
Grantham Close is a small development, a terrace of three properties built on an infill site that is now gated-off Grantham Close, a small cul de sac that runs parallel to Camden Street and is a minute’s walk from the busy road. The properties are being sold by agents O’Connor Shannon, the largest of the four, an end-of-terrace four-bedroom house, 124sq m (1,334sq ft) is asking €725,000.
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The other two properties in the terrace are three-bedroom houses of 111sq m (1,194sq ft). Each is asking €650,000. A fourth house, 11a Grantham Place, also three-bedroom, is asking €650,000.
The developer, Chris Finneran of Finchris Construction, is a brickie by trade but has been building small infill developments since the 1980s.
“They’re nice and neat and easy to handle, although you go through the same amount of hoops as you would with a larger-scale build,” he says.
“We do them well and put a good finish on them.” He’s been contracting quietly all through the lean years.
His last development was a 427sq m (4,600sq ft) property at Pineview, Rathmichael, an A-rated contemporary detached house with geothermal heating and a rainwater harvesting system.
At Grantham Close each of the new-build, A2-rated properties has an open-plan living-dining kitchen with gloss units, quartz counters and a crema marfil tiled floor.
Each house has a small, lawned garden to the rear, accessed through French doors. There is a guest wc in the hall and storage under the stairs.
All properties have granite sills front and back, underfloor heating downstairs and uses grey water in the bathrooms thanks to a communal water harvesting system and feature triple-glazed Nordan Scandinavian windows and doors.
There is a designated parking space outside each house and all are behind electronic gates. The fourth property, 11a Grantham Place, fronts on to the more visible part of the lane. Last June, number 15 Grantham Place, a two-bedroom terraced house, of 97sq m (1,050sq ft), with a small rear patio of 36sq m, sold for €440,000, according to the Property Price Register.
