Two Dalkey five-beds where the living is easy

A few years ago, I was in Dalkey with a romantically inclined friend. "You couldn't buy a view like this," he said as we walked up the hill to take in the sweep of the bay, looking one way to Dún Laoghaire and beyond, past the Pigeon House and on to Howth; then back, across the sea to Bray Head and the Sugarloaf Mountains. Well, actually, he was wrong.

You can buy such a vista: it comes attached to Marabel, up the Knocknacree Road in Dalkey, for sale through DNG for €2.25 million. There, you soak up the vista from the kitchen, drawing room and three of the bedrooms, and you can also lounge on an enormous balcony while, possibly, asking yourself what on earth it was you did to deserve to live in such a heavenly spot.

Marabel is split-level, built into sloping gardens, so, while from the front it appears as if you are coming into a bungalow, a little further investigation reveals two floors, across which the five bedrooms are spread. There is also a sixth potential bedroom, currently in use as a study. The main drama of the house is, of course, in the rooms to the back, which look down across the garden to the sea.

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The kitchen, modernised about six years ago, goes from front to back and has all the fixtures and fittings you could want, but really, who is looking at the marble counter tops when all you really want to do is pull back the concertina-glass doors and head out on to the terrace?

The owners, whose grown-up family have moved out and who are planning to downsize, have installed glass panels at the end of the wooden decking, so there is nothing to come between you and your enjoyment of the sea and sky.

The kitchen wraps round to a cosy space that makes me think Marabel might be almost as good in a storm as it is on a sunny day.

“A house is a house,” says the owner, who has lived here for 25 years. “People can change a house, change the interiors, but to get out of bed each day and see all this,” she gestures to the sea. “That’s the thing you want, that’s what it’s about.”

Marabel is a 15-minute walk from Dalkey village and the Dart station, but just five minutes back (it’s the hill that does it).

Just a little further up, Altamont, which is of a similar size, sold in July last year for €2,470,001. It’s that last €1 that makes me smile. That, and the lovely, lovely view.