Do you remember when you were small and your parents had friends over, and you would work the room while avoiding anyone who might send you to bed? And then you’d miscalculate the risk of refilling your bowl of stolen crisps and emerge from under the table; and before you knew it you’d been packed off upstairs, stopping halfway up for a sulky eavesdrop.
You can imagine your younger self doing exactly this in Belmont House in Dundrum, where there’s an ideal place to sit and look back over the party room. It’s the wide window ledge where the back of the original house meets the extension that the current owners, Diane and Ken O’Byrne, added in 2005 to enlarge and update this fine family home to a six-bedroom, six-bathroom statement with 4,650sq ft (432sq m) and a Ber of D1.
Belmont House is on Stoney Road, which connects Taney Road and Upper Kilmacud Road in Dublin 14, and is “a little piece of country in the middle of suburbia”, says Diane. The road is at such an elevation that from upstairs you look straight across to the top of the William Dargan bridge, which carries the Luas into the village, and are just a little below the top of Taney church tower. The best, and most surprising, views are from the huge main bedroom suite at the top of the house, filling the eye from Howth to the mountains.
The family relocated to Brisbane in 2013 and have rented the property out since then, but have made the “really emotional, but practical” decision to sell Belmont through Lisney Sotheby’s International Realty, with an asking price of €2.95 million.
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The plot covers about a quarter of an acre, with hard landscaping at the front for car parking, protected by electric gates. A shield-shaped plaque, high up on the rendered facade, displays the date 1863 – at which time Stoney Road was called Drummartin Avenue – and the house retains many original features. There are grand fluted columns at the front door, and the ceilings of the hall and the three reception rooms soar to a height of 12ft.
Diane recently oversaw a post-rental refresh of the Victorian house, so most of the walls are painted in neutral colours and it has been partly furnished by UpStaged Properties. The ceiling plasterwork, restored by master craftsmen, has an intricate pattern of vines in high relief. Sash windows are dressed with drapes, and shielded by working shutters. “I love the sense of pride I get when I walk through the house and think, we did this,” says Diane.
To the right of the hall are two fine reception rooms united by matching, restored dove-grey marble fireplaces and divided by folding doors. The front room faces west and the diningroom at the rear gets the morning sun through a glass door that opens to the patio. “The original part of the house was our Christmas area,” says Diane. “The kids would open their presents in front of the fire and then we would have a huge breakfast.”
Across the hall, the third reception/family room opens into the bright, extended kitchen; it’s a gift for big families, with lots of cupboards, built-in appliances, pale granite countertops, and a five-burner, dual-fuel cooker. “We loved to share it with family and friends,” says Diane, whose family are in the UK. “It was fabulous to have space to accommodate them comfortably. Most Sundays, myself and my brother-in-law would alternate cooking dinner and all the family would get together; there would be 14-18 of us and we could easily accommodate that.”
The rest of the room is set up for informal dining and relaxing, and at one side is an inset gas fire. This, says Diane, is “where we would spend most of our time: in summer, opening the doors on to the patio and garden; and in winter, snuggling up cosily with the underfloor heating and watching the rain or snow outside”.
As part of architect Peadar McQuillan’s design for the O’Byrnes, the side return was removed and replaced by a smart own-door suite that runs from a study/livingroom at the front, past a utility, bathroom and linen store, all lit by Veluxes, to a large en suite bedroom with glass doors to the patio. This would be ideal for a student, a grandparent, an au pair, or as a separate workspace.
The well-maintained garden is quite private, with tall trees at the edges, a rubber-matted area at the end for children’s play furniture, and a large, wired shed. At the centre of the grass is a gnarly apple tree, surrounded by a stone seat that curves around in a comma. There’s space for many types of party, as Diane describes, from giant bouncy castles, an inflatable cinema and a disco for the children to a marquee for a 50th, with a bar and a stage.
Upstairs, light floods the landing through a large front window as well as that looking into the kitchen. The two bedrooms on the left are en suite; the front room has a second window with southerly views towards the mountains. The other two bedrooms on this level share a bathroom, and the bonus views from this side are northwards to the city. The back bedroom has pretty pink parrot decor and a bell-push beside the fireplace which, like those in the other bedrooms, has a shield motif at each side.
At the top of the second stairs, the main bedroom, with 49sq m (527sq ft), feels like a show apartment. There’s an upscale en suite under the front eaves, two built-in wardrobes to the side, and a sitting area at the garden end, by floor-to-ceiling windows, where you could spend many quiet hours. “I love the look on people’s faces,” says Diane. “It’s so unexpected: the view across to Dublin Bay is sublime, but people often forget to look the other way to the mountains.”
It might feel a world away, but Belmont House is about 10 minutes’ walk from Dundrum village and two Luas stops, with easy access to shops, schools, the M50 and parks.
