26 Castlewood Avenue, Rathmines, Dublin 6
Two-storey over garden level period property 2,200sq ft (205sq m)
Turley Property Advisors, €1.1million.
From the front, 26 Castlewood Avenue gives little indication of the major renovation that radically changed the house inside. For that you need to see it from the rear where the new strikingly modern, black-clad angular return dominates, while inside the house that cool modern look with its emphasis on space and light is echoed in the swish bathrooms, glass panelled staircases and advanced lighting and heating systems.
The kitchen is located in the basement at the rear is interiors-magazine contemporary with its brown and cream Beromi kitchen, chocolate brown porcelain-tiled splashback, and a range of integrated Siemens appliances. The seating area looks out on the garden through oversize glazed doors. The flooring throughout the basement level is polished terrazzo with under-floor heating. To the front on this level, beside a bathroom, is a room currently kitted out as a bedroom.
0 of 7
The careful renovation also involved restoring or replacing period features, so at hall level – the door still has its Victorian fanlight – original cornices and ceiling roses have been restored, and in the interconnecting reception rooms on one side of the hall there are matching marble fireplaces, one of which is reproduction. On the other side is a very grand, beautifully proportioned reception room running from front to back.
On the first floor, there’s a dramatic monochrome bathroom, and the main bedroom has two large double windows, an original fireplace and an en suite that, like the other bathrooms in the house, wouldn’t look out of place in a boutique hotel.
There are two more double bedrooms at this level. The landing has remote control Velux windows and in the return an area dominated by a vast window that could be used as a home office area or walled off to make a small bedroom. Throughout the proportions are lovely, with good light and a great sense of space.
What is not obvious in 26 Castlewood Avenue is that this is a house which has not been lived in for nearly five years and has been dusted down and furnished for the sale.
It’s a house with a familiar history – a development project (it and number 27 were developed at the same time) that went on sale for a boomtime price of €3 million in 2008, later falling in price and now being sold by a receiver with Turley Property Advisors acting as the agent. The price for the 2,200sq ft (205sq m) renovated period house is now a market-friendly €1.1 million – though it is likely to make more.
Castlewood Avenue is a busy road, linking Rathmines and Ranelagh and that is something potential buyers will have to consider – that and the relatively small back garden that appears to be wider than it is long. In 2008, the house came to the market with its rear garages and so would have had mews potential – but that area is not now part of the sale.
