Shay and Dymphna Healy’s 35 years in 9 Prince of Wales Terrace have been good for them, for their children and grandchildren, for parties, fun, creativity and whatever life threw their way. Shay, a songwriter and broadcaster, is a much-loved man of the arts.
They bought it in 1981 from Dr Luke Clancy for what Dymphna acknowledges was a good price, £58,000. It was in good condition, and they opened up the downstairs and put in a shower room to make it their own. After that came the longer-term project of adding the vaulted antique windows, arches and doors that are part of an inimitable Baroque style throughout.
“Baroque and roll,” Shay calls it. The gardens front and back have a similar drama and exuberance with paved paths, decorative stone and plants galore. All Dymphna’s doing, Shay says. Dymphna herself admits lending her decor skills to the Trocadero and other restaurants, and to a set of green fingers.
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Downsizing
The Healys are reluctantly downsizing to a home on a “flatter area”; Shay has Parkinson’s disease and this will make getting around easier.
The house is tall, with two returns, four flights of stairs, four bedrooms, open-plan living/drawing/kitchen/dining, utility and two shower rooms in a floor area of 182sq m (1,960sq ft). Lisney is asking €995,000.
Prince of Wales Terrace was built in the late 1890s and its first owner was a Mr Chipperfield. There is great cachet in the property's picturesque seclusion in the heart of Dublin 4's busy trendiness.
There are fireplaces everywhere, some with high, oak mantels, others of cast-iron. The hallway and kitchen/dining areas have polished slate floors and there are patio doors to the garden.
The large, first return shower room has a vaulted, leaded glass door, a dado rail runs from the hallway upstairs, the bed in the main bedroom fits into an arched nook and the vaulted, stained-glass window in a shower room on the second return came from a convent. One of the top floor bedrooms is in use as a study.
The whole is relaxed fun and is, as Shay says, “the nicest atmosphere to come in to, a great party house.”
