The south Dublin suburb of Foxrock is teeming with lovely properties, but finding an actual castle — with battlements and parapets — in the area is a rarer thing. The Castle on Claremont Road is not an actual medieval keep, but it’s the next best thing: a castellated Tudor Gothic residence built in 1816, and now in superb condition throughout.
Real castles can be rather forbidding, but this castle, extending to 418sq m (4,500sq ft), is a warm, inviting place, from its welcoming Georgian doorcase with “churchwarden” overlight to its vestibule and huge reception hall and its wide-open drawing room with big bay windows and feature chimney piece. This house is made for entertaining guests and throwing parties, so if you’re planning to haul up the drawbridge (there isn’t one anyway) and shut yourself away from the world, perhaps this is not the place for you.
With its bright interiors and sunlight pouring through picture windows, bay windows, rooflights and stained-glass windows, this is one castle where guests will feel right at home. And now there’s a chance for one house-hunter to actually call it home, as its English owners have decided to sell and, as they said, give another family the opportunity to make timeless memories here.
The house is accessed via electric cast-iron double gates, leading you up a long, sweeping gravel driveway with forecourt that will fit several cars. The driveway also shows the house’s asymmetrical frontage and Irish battlements in the best light, especially at night. Mature trees and flower beds line the driveway, and the front lawn has a water feature, as well as plenty of room to erect a large marquee to host a garden party. Start drawing up your guest list now.
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The remnants of a 17th-century church wall form part of the garden perimeter, adding another level of history to the property. Inside, it feels like time has been mixed up into a heady cocktail. There is ornate coving and chandeliers to signify its 19th-century pedigree, but also modernist and art deco touches that evoke opulent early 20th-century style — and wouldn’t be to everyone’s taste. You wouldn’t be surprised if the owner turned out to be a 1970s rock star living out part of their tax year here, or that the house was used by 1980s pop stars to film their videos for MTV. Either way, music lovers will appreciate the fully integrated stereo system that will allow you to pump out the classic hits all around the house.
A long dining room and family room look out on to a private lawned area to the side of the house, and lead into an open-plan kitchen that opens out to a large timber decking and barbecue area to the rear. There’s a redbrick shed and a cascading gazing ball water feature, and a side door leads out to Claremont Road for when you want to take a stroll down to nearby Foxrock village or scenic Cabinteely Park.
Prospective buyers can be wary of buying a protected structure such as this, fearing they won’t be able to make any improvements or changes, but the castle has full planning permission to alter and extend the property, and there are architects’ drawings for a lovely kitchen extension should the new owners decide to go ahead with works.
Downstairs is a bedroom that can be used as a home office, with guest WC and rear porch. Upstairs are four very spacious bedrooms, three with fine en suites. The main bedroom’s en suite has a free-standing bathtub, and there’s also a spacious, fully tiled family bathroom on this level.
The Castle, Claremont Road, Foxrock, extending to 4,500sq ft, is BER exempt, and is on sale through Vincent Finnegan at an asking price of €3.5 million.
