Shanganagh Terrace, in Killiney, Co Dublin, is a small secluded road on Killiney Hill which has a variety of period houses built on one side only. It enjoys sweeping views down to Wicklow and the Sugarloaf Mountain from its front gardens.
Claygate, at 13 Shanganagh Terrace, is for auction through Jackson Stops on November 1st with a guide price close to £700,000 €888,812). The price of the five-bedroom house, built in the mid-1800s, reflects the changes in the market in less than a decade.
In 1995, Claygate sold after auction for over £161,000; it changed hands again in June 1998, making £335,000 at auction.
The entire layout of the house is quite unusual and very attractive. The house is double-fronted with large wooden doors to a garage in what was presumably the arched coach-house entrance, to one side of the hall door.
A heavy door with side windows and fanlight opens into a lovely hallway with black and white diagonal tiles, walls washed a soft transparent blue with ivory woodwork and a very graceful curving staircase carpeted in a wheat-coloured runner.
To the right there are two doors, one leading into the front drawing room which is decorated in dark red and one at the back leading into a large living and diningroom which takes in the width of the house and is extremely light and airy, with a fireplace and built-in bookcases on one side and the dining area in the smaller space behind the hall.
At some stage the house was extended so there are sliding doors out to a paved garden and there is a smallish but functional kitchen with limed wooden units and storage cupboards.
Next door there is a large bathroom with a utility unit built in and outside this door there is a spacious hot press. New owners might consider converting the bathroom and kitchen into one big kitchen, but there is a lot of space in this whole area.
As you go up, the staircase turns back and ends in a little oval gallery. On this floor are two large bedrooms facing the front of the house, each with a large shuttered Georgian-paned window with views to the Sugarloaf, and period fireplaces. One has an en suite bathroom. Both of these rooms are quite lovely.
Turning left along the landing there are two more bedrooms, one on either side, the smaller of which is currently in use as an office. The other is large and quaint with a skylight and an internal Georgian paned window which now looks out on to a cul-de-sac corridor but which at some time must have been an exterior wall.
There is a fifth bedroom further along down a few stairs and around a corner. This is a rectangular double room decorated in rich yellow, with a good window, a cast-iron fireplace, and lovely old wooden boards.
Outside, the back garden is not large but is paved and planted attractively. The property is bounded by a high granite wall which separates it from the church grounds. It has its own septic tank which, according to the owners, is in excellent working order.
The front garden has a gravelled car space and there is space belonging to the house for three more cars across the road.
This is a house full of charm and quaint little turns and devices and it has the added attraction of being quiet and secluded, but with access to Killiney DART station mere minutes away down a pedestrian way.
