At the sea end of Avoca Avenue, almost opposite the side entrance to the UCD Michael Smurfit Business School is Headford Cottage, a double-fronted villa-style home that is anything but cottagey in either look or scale.
Extending to 251sq m (2,702sq ft) and faced in cut granite, the house has a commanding hall where the owner has hung several paintings – including some of her own works – which help to set a stylish tone.
It’s one that would have been appreciated by a previous resident of the house, artist Sean O’Sullivan RHA, who sketched his daughter on a sheet of headed paper bearing the address. It’s not known when this artist lived here but Deirdre Kearney has been the artist in residence since the mid-1980s. She trained as a solicitor, returned to college to do a master’s at NCAD and has exhibited widely, including to mark the centenary of the Titanic’s maiden voyage in Belfast. She works from a Shomera, complete with kitchenette and bathroom, in the back garden.
Coving and cornices
The house, which is BER-exempt, has been very well-maintained throughout her tenure. To the right of the hall is its formal drawing room where there is a fine Calacatta marble fireplace, and a side door out to the gardens, once used to receive guests. The room interconnects with a formal dining room with pocket sliding doors and both these have fine coving and cornices. These rooms also boast working shutters and smart architraves.
Her family has lived in all the rooms, making use of the so-called good rooms at this level to accommodate some of its five bedrooms. There are three upstairs, and all enjoy the lofty ceiling heights. One to the front gets southern light, the second is behind it and the main bedroom is to the very back of the house, accessed via an inner atrium, overlooking the garden. It has an internal en suite bathroom that has lots of natural light thanks to a rooflight overhead.
Garden level
Despite the fine features upstairs, much of the real living is done downstairs at garden level, in the heart of this home. The main door used by the family takes you directly into the kitchen, which has painted units, speckled granite countertops and an Aga in a racing green colour set into a brick surround. There’s a sitting room off it, whose window frames the garden.
Across the hall are two more bedrooms and what was once the kids’ playroom has evolved to become a good-size home office where there is a wood-burning stove.
What will really set buyers’ pulses racing though is its grounds, which are sizeable. Set on just over 0.2 of an acre of garden, bounded by granite walls, the golden gravelled front has room to park several vehicles while the gated rear has several raised decks where the owners use to enjoy morning, afternoon and evening sun.
The garden is about as wide as it is long with one side set out in a formal Italianate style that includes western red cedars and the other in lawn, big enough to have been used as a mini football pitch.
The property is seeking €2.85 million through SherryFitzGerald.
