Luxury living with swimming pool, lift and direct access to golf club for €3.95m

A large detached house backing onto Castle Golf Club in Rathfarnham has just about everything a family could want: seven en suite bedrooms, a lift connecting four floors from a swimming pool in the basement to a self-contained two-bedroom apartment on the top floor, a landscaped back garden with a children’s playground at the end – and access to the golf club from the bottom of the garden.

Glenart was completely rebuilt by its vendors in 2003 but retains something of the art deco flavour of the houses built in this south Dublin suburb in the 1930s. The double-height entrance hall is lined with panelled pale oak walls and doors, downstairs floors are a beautiful polished parquet, and windows and glass doors throughout the house have slender leaded frames inset.

It’s rare to find a house with a proper lift and clear that little expense was spared in rebuilding the house. Glenart is now more than double the size of the original property, a house called Hernshaw that sold at auction for €1.46 million in 2001.

Glenart, a 740sq m (7,965sq ft) detached house on half an acre at 7 Hillside Drive, Rathfarnham, Dublin 14, is for sale through DNG for €3.95 million. It has a C1 Ber rating. Modern features include a central vacuum system, sound system, 3Kw car charging power point and underfloor heating.

The house – recently the residence of the Kenyan ambassador to Ireland – is handsomely fitted out and feels like a comfortable family home, in spite of its size. Double front doors open into a dramatic double height entrance hall with a galleried landing; a chandelier hangs from a leaded glass dome over circular stairs carpeted with a deep red V’soske Joyce carpet. The pale marble floor steps down to a parquet floor at the end of the hall, with floor-to-ceiling windows and doors opening onto the back garden.

A door on the left of the front door opens onto oak stairs leading down to the basement. On the right of the hall, past a cloakroom, fully-tiled toilet and a door to the double garage, is the lift. A wide arch beyond this with sliding pocket doors opens into the parquet-floored drawingroom-cum-diningroom: it has a fireplace with a marble surround and a wall of floor-to-ceiling windows with double glass doors opening onto the back garden.

A hallway opposite the reception rooms leads to a wing with a family room with a glass-fronted fireplace, a large study, utility room and open plan kitchen/breakfastroom. The kitchen area, floored with beige Travertine tiles, has a large cream Aga, polished granite island unit and countertops.

An area at the end of the kitchen, with fitted cabinets and a desk, has more glazed doors opening onto the garden. Circular stairs with a glass-panelled banister lead down from here to what’s described in DNG’s brochure as “the leisure suite”. No dryrobes needed here – the shimmering blue 1.2m-deep swimming pool is heated. A glass wall beside it looks into an area that could be a gym or a snooker room and off here is a good-sized steam room, shower, toilet and changing area. Steps lead up from the basement to the back garden beside a to a cascading water feature.

Upstairs, there are five bedrooms on the first floor, on two sides of the galleried landing. All are doubles, all en suite, all with fitted wardrobes. The large main bedroom has a walk-in wardrobe and a marble-tiled en suite bathroom with a shower and a Jacuzzi bath with a TV over it.

More stairs – or the lift – lead up to the self-contained two-bed apartment at the top of the house. A small livingroom has glass doors opening onto a good-sized glass-panelled balcony with great views of the golf course (it overlooks the 14th hole) and glimpses of the Dublin mountains. A small kitchenette has a fridge and microwave, but no oven. A double bedroom looks over the back garden; the second bedroom is a single and both have en suites.

The back garden is both formal and family-friendly. A sandstone patio stretches the width of the house and a sandstone path divides the lawn. The garden is dominated by two large, mature cedar trees; a brilliant red tree nearer the house is an Acer Osakazuki (Japanese Maple).

At the end of the garden is an artificial lawn and playground equipment that includes an in-ground trampoline and a proper slide. Hidden in one corner is an old bomb shelter. Most importantly, there’s a gate in the tall fence that separates the garden from the golf course, offering pedestrian access.

There’s lots of room to park in the cobblelocked front garden.