For many years the house that occupies a large corner site at the junction of Glenamuck Road and Brennanstown Road was hidden from view, and not just from passers-by: “I grew up next door [now Seoul Manor, home to the Korean ambassador in Ireland] and, to be honest, we never really knew it existed,” says the current owner of Ingleside, a chocolate-box pretty Edwardian arts and crafts home that sits on a generous one-acre site.
When the detached three-bay property last came to the market in 2001, it was listed with a £1 million (€1.27 million) estimate and required total refurbishment. At the time it had a single-storey extension from the 1960s and a greenhouse, and the site was packed with so many old trees that passers-by really didn’t know what lay behind the boundary walls.
“While we did lots straight away to make it liveable [painting and installing a small kitchen into what is today a utility] it wasn’t until 2008 that we did a really big job and moved out for a year,” say the owners, who are now downsizing.
They engaged architect Denis Gilbert to design a new kitchen-living extension “that was in keeping with and to tie into the original house”. A large space measuring 90sq m (969sq ft) was added to the rear of the house, which benefits from a southwesterly orientation, and now fuses the classic Edwardian home with contemporary design, within a double-height glazed apex roof, which adds both volume and interest.
“One of my favourite things in the house is when you come downstairs on a Sunday morning and the sun is streaming in. We’re so lucky that we have sunshine from 10am to about 8pm,” says the owner. Here, antiglare Allspec glass by Pilkington was installed to combat excessive light, so the room always remains relaxed and never feels overheated.
In the old part of the house, which dates from about 1909, a dual-aspect dining and drawingroom look out to the front of the house, as does a study that lies off a very impressive front hallway. A long livingroom with an Adam’s style fireplace leads to the new extension, where the family spend much of their time.
Upstairs are five bedrooms, a peaceful principal room with views to the Dublin Mountains that takes up the entire length of the house, while two of the bedrooms have been designed with bespoke steel-framed mezzanines for book storage.
Up another flight of stairs is a large attic room; measuring 34sq m, it is the ultimate teenager’s den and is adjacent to a large storage area.
Downstairs off the new extension lies a courtyard, designed by multi-award winning landscape designer Jane McCorkell who incorporated a sheltered patio with a water feature bordered by neat box hedging that frames spiky white agapanthus and mop-head hydrangea.
McCorkell also drew plans up for the rest of the garden, which were stalled as the M50 was being widened, and some of the very old trees fell on the site – they were cleared for safety – and one had destroyed the old greenhouse.
Planning was granted in 2019 for a similar-sized five-bedroom house on the large site, which may be of interest to developers, and this will dictate how the gardens are used by new owners.
It’s a lot of house at 415sq m (4,467sq ft), and the acre of grounds – whether the planning permission to build another property is used or not – will be a further selling point besides the condition, aspect and sheer charm of Ingleside.
The property is on the market through Sherry FitzGerald seeking €3.75 million.
