The home of garden designer Verney Naylor, a detached Georgian house on just over a third of an acre of garden in Sandymount, Dublin 4, is likely to sell for well over Lisney's £800,000 guide price when it is auctioned next month. The four-bedroom house at 55 Claremont Road should attract lively interest, not just for its superb garden but also because of its location within easy commuting distance of the city. Hidden from view by trees and shrubs, it has off-street parking and pedestrian access.
Claremont is a relatively quiet road that connects Tritonville Road with Sandymount village and has a mixture of Victorian redbricks, small apartment blocks and modest semis. Recently Sherry FitzGerald sold a semi-detached four-bedroom redbrick, directly across the road from number 55, for £725,000. Verney Naylor and her husband, David, bought the house over 25 years ago at a time when securing a home in Dublin 4 was a relatively straightforward affair. They viewed it on a Friday and agreed a deal the following Monday.
About 10 years ago, they purchased an extra section of garden behind an djoining block of flats. The garden will be known to many people who attended gardening classes there and former pupils may well be among the bidders on May 17th. Number 55 is an attractive double fronted house with a total floor area of around 1,780 sq ft and plenty of scope to extend either at the back or to the side, where there is a long, narrow garage. New owners will undoubtedly make big changes to the house. Although it is charming and comfortable and has been maintained over the years, it could now do with a thorough overhaul.
At hall level there are two very attractive, almost square reception rooms to the left of the hall. The diningroom is to the front, and the sittingroom overlooks the back garden. Both rooms have ornate ceiling cornices and matching white marble fireplaces.
On the other side of the hall the kitchen runs from front to back of the house and has a full range of pine fitted units and space for a dining table in front of a big sash window. The stairs and top landing are lit by a high, arched window that offers a glorious view of the garden. Upstairs, there are three bedrooms and two bathrooms.
The garden level has two rooms currently used as a bedroom and a study, as well as a bathroom and a store room. This level will almost certainly be converted, most likely to provide a large kitchen-cum-livingroom with access to the garden.
You don't see all of the garden from the back windows of the house. Instead, it reveals itself gradually as a series of gardens bounded by pathways that wind around and through it.
There are no showy colourful herbaceous borders or expanses of smooth lawn. The emphasis is on peace and tranquillity, with a Japanese garden on one side and a woodland garden elsewhere. There is also a vegetable garden and, right at the end in a screened off section, a sight to gladden any true gardener's heart - masses and masses of compost.
