Bookending one of Monkstown’s finest Georgian terraces at Montpelier Parade is a very pretty white painted gate lodge called Shandon Cottage, built in 1865 to service the now-demolished Shandon House.
It’s sandwiched between lofty neighbours on one side and on the other dormer bungalows in the Shandon estate built on the Big House’s land.
As it turns out, it’s not so little – from the front it presents as a charming, modest-sized cottage but the current owner extended the detached property to make a family home and it is now, due to clever design, two storey with a contemporary feel and 112 sq m (1,210 sq ft) of space.
The owner bought in the early 1990s, paying a little over £70,000 for the gate lodge which was then pretty much its original size and in very poor condition. The location was the draw – the sea is a few minutes away, the village a stroll and the public transport is good – as was the south-facing garden.
There was a tiny bedroom upstairs but the ceiling was so low as it to make it unusable – so as well as a major upgrade, a complete rethink of the interior layout was called for. The imaginative design by architect Peter Legge turned the house upside down – the sleeping quarters are downstairs, kitchen, dining and living area upstairs.
Inside the front door is a small interior porch and then into the hall with the staircase where a fireplace with a woodburning stove suggests the area could be used as a small living room instead of a through space. Off it to the front is the first of the bedrooms furnished with a loft bed to suit a teenager.
Then off a long, quite narrow hallway are two more bedrooms, small doubles, one with en suite, and the family bathroom, with the hallway ending in another room which opens directly into a sun room and then out to the garden.
This is listed as a fourth bedroom but new owners will probably use it as it is currently used – as a living space with direct access to the low maintenance back garden.
The ceiling height at hall level was dropped to allow for a usable upstairs level to be created. A bespoke contemporary timber staircase with glass balustrade leads up to a bright open-plan kitchen and dining area with pitched ceiling – like a smart urban loft space – with the lovely detail of a diamond-shaped window through which the owners say in winter it’s possible to see all the way over to Howth.
In 2006, this level was extended with the addition of a large Pilkington glazed conservatory with self-cleaning glass that is now the home’s main living room.
The BER is a D2. Houses with Montpelier Parade, Monkstown in the address command serious prices – one of the grand dames, a three-storey over-basement Georgian on the terrace is currently for sale through Lisney seeking €2.35 million – and Shandon Cottage is on the market through Knight Frank asking €895,000.
