Windgates: €1m A recently refurbished four-bed house on three acres has inspirational views. Jane Powers reports
Clouds Hill is a 1950s bungalow perched in a clearing on the side of Bray Head at Windgates, just south of Bray Golf Club. The three-acre site rolls downhill, getting progressively wilder as it tumbles past rocky outcrops, gorse and the old woodland of the Killruddery Estate.
The south-west-facing four-bedroom house is to be auctioned on October 28th by HOK Residential, and is expected to fetch over €1 million. The home of artist Laura Morrisroe and her family for the past 15 years, it was entirely refurbished four years ago, and virtually doubled in size. There are teak windows throughout, and solid timber floors and recessed ceiling lighting in most rooms.
The hall door is an arched gothic affair of heavy oak. It swings into a spacious hallway with walls the colour of farmhouse butter: "This is the house with forty shades of yellow," says Ms Morrisroe.
And indeed, almost all the rooms are painted in sunny tones, lending the interior a warm glow.
The daytime rooms are all on the left-hand side of the house.
Sittingroom and diningroom are side-by-side, each with a redbrick fireplace as its main feature. Both have arches leading into a large sunroom that wraps across the front of the house.
This is a big comfortable space, floored in Chinese slate tiles which make a stony patchwork of grey, gold and silver. Five large windows look into the garden, while further windows set into the lofty wood-panelled ceiling ensure that this is a bright and airy room.
The kitchen is a huge, many-windowed room, half of which is devoted to a dining area. The business end is filled with pine presses, and is dominated by a covetable Alpha range nestling in a brick niche.
The racing-green, oil-fired machine acts not only as a cooker, but it also runs the radiators and heats the water. A separate Neff oven and hob mean that all cooking choices are available.
Adjoining the kitchen is a generously-sized utility room with more storage space, and laundry facilities including a genuine Belfast sink. "It came from my grandparents' house in Belfast," says Ms Morrisroe. "I lugged it around since I was 15, but it's staying here now."
There is also a shower room at this end of the house. The other half of the house contains the four bedrooms and a family bathroom. One of the bedrooms is a single, while the other three are doubles - one of which is en suite.
The garden near to the house is protected from the wind by a shelter belt of conifers and griselinia.
Beyond this green shield there is a fine view of the Big Sugarloaf and Lord Meath's lands at Killruddery.
