The beautifully designed and well-tended one-acre garden is the standout attraction of a house in Glenageary, although the house — designed by the architect Michael Scott in the 1930s — has many fine features too.
The private garden has been carefully looked after by the handful of people who have owned the property. Dominated by a blue Atlantic cedar in the centre, this is a garden richly planted with trees and flower beds. There are gravel paths around a lawn and a nearly separate area near its end with a central fountain. There’s even an old air-raid shelter in one corner of the garden, now mostly blocked.
Rathbarry was designed by Scott for wine merchant and skilled amateur film-maker Desmond Egan, whose documentary shorts are in the Irish Film Institute archive. Period features in the Arts and Crafts-style house include a lovely oak parquet floor in the entrance hall and drawingroom, and multi-paned metal-framed windows with brass handles. The present owners considered but decided against replacing them when they did work on the house after moving in 40 years ago.
Conservation architect David Sheehan handled some of the work they have done to the house: one of his principal changes was to create glazed double doors at the end of the entrance hall, opening on to the back patio. They frame a beautiful view of the garden as you step in from the front porch.
Rathbarry, a 279 sq m (3,000 sq ft) detached five-bed nearly opposite St Paul’s Church on Silchester Road, near the corner with Adelaide Road, is for sale for €4.5 million through Sherry FitzGerald. It’s a high price, and whoever buys it will probably spend more money to modernise and extend the house. It has been well maintained, but new owners will probably replace the dated kitchen at the back of the house and upgrade some bathrooms. The house, not a protected structure, has a Ber of F.
Agent Michael Grehan reckons it’s “possibly the best family home property opportunity of 2022 so far” adding “the integrity of the grounds and secluded boundaries really make this a rare find ... It’s the best one-acre site in Glenageary — and I have seen most of them”.
Like other Silchester Road houses, Rathbarry is set well back from the road, with a wide gravelled drive and lawn bordered by mature trees. An arched brick entrance with two cream pillars opens into the front porch, then into the bright parquet-floored entrance hall; two arches on its right frame the stairs and a side hall that leads to the kitchen.
The large drawingroom on the left of the front hall has a gleaming herringbone parquet floor, high skirting boards, a mahogany fireplace with white marble inset and two wide original bay windows at the front and side. The diningroom on the other side has a wide bay window overlooking the front garden and a display of colourful plates on high plate rails.
The sittingroom/family room behind the drawingroom, with two tall windows overlooking the back garden, is bright; it opens to a sunroom with a tiled floor and floor-to-ceiling bay with double doors opening on to the patio.
The kitchen, with its large cream Aga, is off the side hall on the opposite side of the house. More rooms at this end include a boot room with a tiled floor and doors into the back garden, a guest toilet, utility room and a good-sized wine cellar.
Upstairs, a door on the half-landing opens on to the roof of the rooms at the side of the house and a terrace with great views of the back garden. There are five bedrooms on the first floor, three doubles — one fitted out as a home office — and two singles. The main bedroom at the front of the house has the original multipaned windows looking across to the spire of St Paul’s on the far side of Silchester Road. It has mirror-fronted wardrobes and a large, modern, fully tiled en suite. The family bathroom and separate toilet are tiled in blue and white.
A wide patio stretches across the back of the house: branches of a Turkey oak tree, planted beside the garden wall, sweep across one side of the patio; farther down is a colourful myrtle tree. Originally designed by Watsons Nurseries in Killiney when the house was built, it’s partly a formal garden, with box hedging around juniper trees and colourful flower beds that include blue geraniums, purple polygala and orange geums. Wisteria and roses spill down the back wall of the house. Meticulously maintained, it has been a lovely spot for family weddings as well as for grandchildren to play in.
