Designer HousesThe glamour and style of the 1930s is captured in an interesting and unusual house in Ranelagh. The three-bedroom house has a block-like structure with a Bauhaus feel on the outside, but inside, its many art deco features show the softer side of 1930s design, popularised by Hollywood.
Merton House, Merton Drive, off Sandford Road in Ranelagh, comes to auction on September 25th through joint agents Jackson-Stops and Hamilton Osborne King. It has a guide of over €975,000.
There is something of a film set feel to the main rooms, with plenty of doorways for exits and entrances, dramatic or otherwise. All of which makes it fitting that since 1995, film director and producer Michael Lindsay-Hogg and his wife, Lisa, have owned Merton House. Lindsay-Hogg is the son of Geraldine Fitzgerald, an Irish actress who appeared in films such as Wuthering Heights.
While they credit the previous owner with much of the restoration work, the Lindsay-Hoggs' own taste for 1930s-style has kept the house in very good order. Interior designer Alice Roden advised on wall colours and curtains, all of which stay true to the period.
The house is T-shaped with the livingroom to the left of the central stairwell. This room has a fireplace and doors opening onto a patio at the rear. To the right of the stairwell is a long diningroom and off it, a fitted kitchen and utility room.
Upstairs, the main bedroom has an en suite bathroom and shower room, both with 1930s-style fittings. There are two further bedrooms, one quite small, and a study to the front with large windows overlooking the garden.
The unknown architect of Merton House created a home with many surprises. A winding path through dense shrubbery. leads to the front door. Inside, there is more light than you might expect, with several skylights and three or four windows in some rooms. All rooms seem to have views into the garden. At the rear of the house are two patio areas, and a pathway leads to the side of the house, opening onto a lawn shaded by a mature pine tree.
