It’s all about work-life balance for denizens of Dunmore East in Co Waterford. The gem of a tourist village on the southeast coast is home to its own bluegrass festival, a number of beaches, a golf club, tennis clubs and yacht clubs. From Meadowcourt House, a large private spot perched on an elevated site in the village, it is about a five-minute walk from any of these places, or three minutes for a swim at Lady’s Cove – made a little longer on the return due to the property’s elevation.
But that’s the trade-off for living in a spot where views from the principal bedroom and sunroom take in the estuary, coastline and the Hook Peninsula.
The current owners – who have lived here for the past two decades – engaged local architect Ken Wigham of Wigham McGrath & Partners to redesign the layout of the home, which was constructed in 1969. A garage was turned into a spacious utility and, in 2006, along with some additional internal restructuring, Wigham designed a sunroom. Opening out to the patio via a full wall of concertina doors, it creates a seamless divide between indoors and outside, and works really well for entertaining. As do the layouts of the living and dining areas, as they too open out to the sun terrace.
The five-bedroom house, measuring a generous 270sq m (2,906sq ft), was designed to fit in with its natural surroundings and, unless you knew it was there, you would never know it existed – such is the privacy it offers.
Forêt restaurant review: A masterclass in French classic cooking in Dublin 4
Charlene McKenna: ‘Within three weeks, I turned 40, had my first baby and lost my father’
Restaurateur Gráinne O’Keefe: I cut out sugar from my diet and here’s how it went
Ireland’s new dating scene: Finding love the old-fashioned way
The house wraps around a courtyard, which now has a sunroom as its focus and benefits from a private terrace off the main bedroom and both south- and west-facing terraces to soak up heat from the sunniest part of the country – along with Carlow and Wexford, Waterford gets the most annual sunshine hours.
Vaulted ceilings with Oregon pine beams, a new Evoke German kitchen with Siemens appliances and marble worktops, along with two solid-fuel stoves are just some of the features in this split-level house.
An added bonus is the fact that underneath one side of the property is a large basement that has both internal (from the main hallway) and external access. It could well be used for further accommodation, but given all the sporting amenities locally, it will more than likely be used for storage, and could easily accommodate a rigid inflatable boat.
The property has five bedrooms in total – all of which are doubles and two are en suite – and one is currently used as a home office. It’s Ber is C2; it has Swedex windows and doors, and a new Grant Vortex boiler was installed in 2021, while independent hot water is constant thanks to an air-to-heat thermodynamic cylinder.
[ Clever design and lots of light on Irishtown terrace for €525,000Opens in new window ]
Lying on half an acre with private access, the property also has pedestrian entrance for walking to the village and is sheltered by forestry on the northern boundary, while the gardens are landscaped around the central sun terrace.
The owners, who are downsizing and heading back to Dublin to be closer to family, have placed their private home just a few minutes from the village of Dunmore East on the market through Remax, seeking €1.495 million.
