The Grand Canal has always been a peaceful slice of city life, before and since poet Patrick Kavanagh chose to sit by its banks and ruminate.
This part of the metropolis has been transformed by the explosion of tech firms in the Docklands, just a few bridges to the east. The Iput office building, One Wilton Park, is nearing completion on the north bank at Wilton Terrace, while the Oakmount-led 55 Lad Lane, a block of apartments and penthouses, is already well under construction and due for completion early next year.
A lunchtime food market on Thursdays has expanded to both banks and attracts office workers, while the off-road cycle paths all the way to Docklands and west to Inchicore offer a very scenic commute or excursion.
All this is on your doorstep and yet it’s less than a 10-minute walk to Grafton Street. At the weekend it feels as quiet as the countryside. For now, though, during the week there is a lot of building activity and ensuing traffic and noise.
But park that for a minute and note the modest grey door behind One Wilton Park where, hidden behind high stone walls, is an 18th-century coach house, number 4 Cumberland Road, once the mews of number 9 Lad Lane.
It’s a mews that has been given a very contemporary glass-box extension.
The beauty of this contrast is that the views from its glass walls are utterly private and unseen from the street. You could eat breakfast in the nip and no one on the road would be any the wiser although some of those on the upper floors of the surrounding Georgian townhouses might get an eyeful.
The house opens into a generous hall with the open-plan glazed space to the right. To the left is the first of the property’s two double bedrooms. If a couple were living here they could use this second bedroom as a TV room or den. Adjoining it is a full bathroom.
But the open-plan kitchen, living dining room is this home’s sweet spot. The room has a long galley-style kitchen with vanilla gloss units and a dining table across from it, where a large sliding door opens to the outside.
The L-shaped garden wraps around the glass walls and extends to 78sq m of completely private outdoor space. The space is planted with bamboo and enhanced by mature elephant’s ear plants in large wicker baskets, part of the staging of the house for sale by Cormac Rowell of Rowell Design. He’s moved from his Donnybrook premises to take up temporary residence at 107 Trees Road Upper, where you can try out much of the furniture you see here in real life.
The living area overlooks a sheltered outdoor room whose gable wall has been painted the same deep warm grey as its timber-panelled ceiling and matches the aluminium glazing.
A circular gap lets daylight into this sheltered space and could also be somewhere you plant a tree. There’s also barbecue and seating areas.
The sitting area looks out to this room. It’s been styled with ladylike French-inspired armchairs and a love seat, which all have dainty silver or gold legs and are set around a gas-fuelled stove. They look the bomb, but their forms won’t suit anyone who might prefer a big sofa on which to lounge; while this area isn’t huge it is far more sizeable than it appears in the photographs and the ceiling height extends to almost 3m with long rooflights down the middle to bring in even more light.
The main bedroom is upstairs where it extends the width of the original property, has vaulted ceilings and low-set six-over-six paned sash windows and a large en suite shower room. The scale of each space is generous.
As well as having town and the canal on your doorstep, there is room to park one vehicle off-street but this will somewhat ruin the look of your private garden. Parking in the area can be tricky during business hours but is never a problem at the weekend.
The two-bedroom house, which has a B3 Ber, extends to 110sq m (1,184sq ft) and is seeking €875,000 through SherryFitzGerald.
