Many of us dream of escaping the rat race to a bucolic life surrounded by green fields, livestock and peace and quiet.
That’s just what the owner of An Tigín did, in the process creating a stylish contemporary three-bed designed to follow the sun’s arc from a sunny east-facing terrace off the master bedroom for breakfast to a westerly terrace ideal for sundowners as the sun slips below the horizon.
She had returned from abroad and was looking for somewhere with river views and close to a commutable train station. Having previously lived in the area in a 19th-century house on the banks of the river Barrow, she was keen to return to Co Carlow’s rolling hills. The fact that from Carlow town – a 10-minute drive – to Heuston station in Dublin was a journey time of 55 minutes, also appealed.
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The site had an old 19th-century farmhouse on it, its gable wall end visible to the road, but the mature broadleaf trees and the fact that the almost 2.6-acre site was bound on one side by a stream won her over.
She employed architect Evelyn Duff who discreetly extended the property, adding an entrance porch to the front, pulling out the ground floor to give it a better sense of flow and installing a cedar-clad two-storey extension at one end of the house.
Now a three-bed, three-bath house it opens into the garden room where a wall of glass looks on to the finely planted surrounds. The ground floor is set out in a broken-plan fashion with each room interconnecting and warmed by oil-fired underfloor heating. The garden room leads through to the living room, where there is an open fire on a concrete plinth.
The adjacent has double-height ceilings and a large form sliding glass door out to a terrace. The kitchen is on the other side of the stairs and has smart vanilla gloss units and, the very essence of country living, a cream Aga.
The kitchen opens out to another terrace, this one east-facing to take in the morning light.
Upstairs the main suite is enormous and includes a light-filled sitting room and a luxurious en-suite bathroom, where you can relax in an iroko-clad tub and watch the livestock grazing below. The property boasts views all the way to the Slieve Bloom mountains.
The house, which measures 188sq m/2,023sq ft and has a decent C3 BER rating, is seeking €495,000 through agent DNG McCormack.
The village of Killeshin – for a pint of milk and the local national school – is about a two-mile drive away.
