FOXROCK/€4.3M:When businesswoman Breda Clifford moved from Sandymount to Foxrock five years ago, the intention was to renovate the 25-year-old house she had bought in The Birches enclave off Torquay Road, and settle down.
Having sold her workwear business, Clio Forde, she was ready to take on a new project, and the more she did to the interior of the four-bedroom detached house, the more she enjoyed it.
Now the house, called Fernhurst, is finished to an impeccable degree and Clifford is ready to move onto a new project.
Having taken a degree in interior design in the meantime, she is also ready to launch herself into a new career.
The house is now on the market through Savills HOK. It will be auctioned on May 7th and the AMV is €4.3 million.
The house could easily be pitched at either families trading up or wealthy downsizers.
Most of the accommodation is laid out over two floors of the vaguely Tudor-style house with its tiled roof and thrust-out windows.
However, at the top of the house is a superb playroom that has light spilling in through five windows and enough space to convert it into additional bedrooms, or to import a full-size snooker table.
Overall, the house has 346sq m (3,725sq ft) of living space, and it is set on a third of an acre of landscaped grounds.
The house seems bigger still, because of the airy, open-plan feel of the ground floor.
Off the wide entrance hall is a superb kitchen with traditional hand-painted units and a vast island topped in a pale and interesting granite. Clifford admits that the inspiration for this impressive space came from Clive Christian, though the work was carried out by her own team of joiners.
The kitchen goes in two directions - towards the conservatory-style dining space, with its soaring ceiling and views over the garden, and to the right towards a pretty and spacious sittingroom with French doors to the garden. The entire space is floored in a dark, polished French??? which looks attractively weathered.
Double doors from the hallway lead to a cosy diningroom or study, with panelled walls and space to seat eight or 10 in comfort.
The decor here is based on a room in Ralph Lauren's New York townhouse, while in the large drawingroom on the other side of the hallway, the honey coloured walls and carpet make for a relaxing, night time space.
Upstairs, off a wide landing lit by a quirky chandelier with flickering bulbs, is a wow of a bedroom complete with a room sized dressing area with mirrors, lights, and excellent fitted wardrobes.
The three further bedrooms include a guest room with en suite, while the other two share a really smart family bathroom, fashionably tiled in creamy marble and mosiac.
A door from the landing reveals a staircase leading up into the attic.
The previous owner was a keen garden, and so Clifford says she had little to do to with the shrub and flower lined lawns that are in the front and back, except to maintain and enjoy them.
Fernhurst,
The Birches,
Torquay Road,
Foxrock
Detached house of 346sq m (3,725sq ft) set on a
third of an acre
Agent:Savills HOK
