Sunnyside is a lovely detached property on the Old Lucan Road, opposite the landmark Deadman’s Inn. Hidden behind a high wall, the house lives up to its name. The house looks like a gate lodge but the owner has been unable to find out much of its history, save to suppose that it might have been a gate lodge to the headmaster’s house of King’s Hospital school, which is within walking distance.
The owner bought it in 1988 and reconfigured the layout, extending it in a mirror image of the original. She used family friend Brian O’Connell, now of O’Connell Mahon Architects, the firm chosen to design the new children’s hospital.
A devotee of Frank Lloyd Wright, O’Connell set about giving the period property an arts and crafts feel that very much chimes with its country setting.
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The original house only had a front porch – no real hall to speak of – so he suggested turning the original diningroom into a hall and flooding the space with light from a huge, leaded-glass box window. The glass was designed by Abbey Stained Glass Studio, the company recently charged with restoring the Harry Clarke window of St Mel’s Cathedral, Longford, which was destroyed by fire in 2009.
Motifs favoured by the American architect are visible throughout the house, in the glass doors that lead from the drawingroom to the diningroom, in the staircase and even in the kitchen cabinetry, although this is just a happy coincidence, says the owner.
The house now has several interconnecting rooms: a formal drawingroom with a beautiful original box bay window, glass doors lead to a formal dining room with a small library off it, and on through to a fine sunroom with a west-facing decked area outside. From the kitchen, there are two huge beech trees .
The property, which has 220sq m (2373sq ft), is surrounded by trees and large shrubbery and feels very far from urban life, although Liffey Valley shopping centre is just a few minutes’ walk away over a footbridge. Traffic from the N4 is audible but in time you would tune that out.
On one of the gateposts at the entrance is a sign for Springvale Farm, a house on seven acres to the rear of Sunnyside. On the other is a sign for Quarryvale House, a five bay two-storey house built in 1910. You can see glimpses of it through autumnal leaves from one of the four upstairs bedrooms.
The bedrooms upstairs have pitched ceilings and heights of about 10 feet. The master bedroom has a small walk-in wardrobe and an ensuite with a diamond-shaped window.
It is a house that is rus in urbe, says the owner – “it creates the illusion of being deep in the country despite being just a 15-minute drive from the city centre”. She is hoping a family will buy it; the property does have a wonderful family friendly atmosphere .
The property is asking €695,000 through agents Ganly Walters.
