A two-storey-over-basement Georgian house hidden away off Sorrento Road in Dalkey has glimpses of the sea from bedrooms on the second floor, and excellent views of the sea across to Howth from a rooftop terrace. You’d need to be reasonably fit to enjoy them: the terrace extends from the attic, accessed via a spiral staircase. Above the terrace, up a short ladder, is a kind of crow’s nest lookout.
Number 2 Grosvenor Terrace, Dalkey, a 148sq m (1,600sq ft) three-bed semi, is for sale through Sherry FitzGerald for €1.395 million. It has gas-fired central heating and, as a listed building, is BER exempt.
Built in the 1830s, it’s a relatively modest-sized house with attractive period features that include a front door framed by stained-glass panels, sash windows with working shutters and high ceilings with coving and cornicing. A three-storey glazed extension at the back was added about 30 years ago, and the basement renovated to provide a comfortable kitchen-diningroom.
It must have been one of the first houses built in this secluded cul de sac tucked away behind open iron gates off Sorrento Road, about halfway between Dalkey village and the Vico Road. There are about 10 houses in the cul de sac, built into Dalkey’s rocky terrain: this is most evident in number 2’s back garden, a large courtyard sheltered by high stone walls on one side and by a large boulder on the other.
Granite steps lead up the front hall, with an arch halfway along. There are two separate reception rooms at the right, both with stripped timber doors. The drawingroom at the front has a tiled fireplace with a marble mantel and a large sash window with stained-glass side panels. The reception room behind it, with its baby grand piano, is dubbed the music room: it also has a fireplace with tiled inset, ceiling coving and a large sash window overlooking the back garden.
Steps at the end of the hall lead down to a small timber-floored sunroom in the glazed extension; there are steps from here down to the back garden.
Open-plan space
The kitchen-diningroom at garden level is an open-plan space with a polished timber floor. A timber-topped breakfast bar partially divides the space: there’s a gas-burning stove set into the fireplace in the kitchen, and an open fireplace with a long timber mantel in the diningroom, which looks over a small front patio. An understairs door opens to it and a few steps lead up to the road outside. There’s a toilet outside the back door, next to the back patio.
The grand family bathroom is on the first return, a very sunny spot on an April afternoon, with a glazed atrium roof above a large free-standing clawfoot bath. There are three bedrooms on the second floor, a double at the back and a double and single at the front. The bedroom at the back has a wash-hand basin and a shower cubicle in the room. From both front and back bedrooms there are glimpses of the sea across Dalkey’s rooftops.
Spiral stairs lead from here to the attic, where there’s a good-sized room used for storage. A door opens on to the glass-railed rooftop terrace, which looks across Coliemore Road to the sea, the sound of breaking waves loud on a windy afternoon. Six steps up a small ladder lead to the railed crow’s nest platform, from where there are uninterrupted views of Dublin Bay.
The sheltered back courtyard garden is paved with sandstone tiles; railed stone steps at one side lead up to a small seating area. There’s room to park two cars outside on the cul de sac’s private road.
2 Grosvenor Terrace, off Sorrento Road, Dalkey, Co Dublin: €1.395 million
Agent: Sherry FitzGerald
