When estate agent Conor O'Gallagher was looking for a home over a decade ago, he had a period home in mind – then saw the plans for an uber-modern house to be built in Glenageary. He bought 4 Traverslea Close off plans close to the height of the boom for €1.65 million, moving in with his wife Susan 18 months later in 2006.
His house, one of three adjacent to each other at the entrance to the Traverslea Close/Traverslea Woods development built in the early noughties, is truly modern. Designed by architect Stephen Manning of McCrossan O'Rourke Manning Architects, it is a tall, very bright building with a curved zinc roof, very high ceilings and lots of glazing (all double) throughout. It also has surround sound, individually controlled in each room, and wireless-controlled heating.
Decorated in contemporary style, painted white or shades of pale grey, with solid oak doors and floors, it has been a comfortable family home "where everything works extremely well", says O'Gallagher. Now the family are moving on and 4 Traverslea Close, Glenageary Road Lower, Glenageary, Co Dublin, is for sale for €1.395 million through JLL, where O'Gallagher is head of residential.
The double-height entrance hall, with a 23ft high ceiling and a glazed minstrel gallery looking over it, sets the tone for the rest of the house. The drawingroom, opening through glazed doors on the left of the hall, has floor-to-ceiling and wall-to-wall glazed windows and doors at the front and back of the room. Like the family room, it has a log-effect gas fire. The house has gas-fired central heating and a B3 BER rating.
The heart of the home is the kitchen/diningroom/family room at the end of the hall: the kitchen widens out into the family room, which has a 13ft high arched ceiling with industrial steel beams. A wall of floor-to-ceiling glazed doors slide open into the small garden, effectively an outdoor room – the doors from the drawingroom also open into it. It’s very private, with the high redbrick wall of the original Traverslea House at the back, next to Glengeary Road Lower: you can just see the top of the bus stop outside. Raised flowerbeds and some built-in seating edge a small astroturf lawn.
The kitchen has pale quartz countertops, cream high gloss units and a good-sized utility room off it. There is also slightly angled playroom off the family room, originally meant to be a bedroom: concealed plumbing means that an en suite could be built in the room.
Upstairs there are three double bedrooms (the main one en suite), all with fitted wardrobes, and a smart family bathroom off a very bright landing.
There’s room to park three cars outside. A small beehive hut-shaped structure in the green space shared by the three modern houses turns out to be a listed bomb shelter with a small entrance where the children of the houses play, says O’Gallagher. 4 Traverslea Close has an annual management charge of €2,000.
The refurbished gate lodge – number 1 Traverslea Close – sold for €1.023 million in 2014 and the refurbished Traverslea House for €2.35 million in 2016. The handsome redbrick was built in the late 19th century for Ivy Hone, a sister of artist Nathaniel Hone. Traverslea Woods, a development of apartments built like Traverslea Close in the grounds of the original house by O'Malley Construction, is towards the back of the site behind electronic gates.
