Set out in a loop from the top of Rathmines village around to Rathgar Road near the Church of the Three Patrons, Grosvenor Road was among those laid out in the 1850s through the lands of the former Grimswood Nurseries. One of the earliest buildings on the road is the Baptist church, at the roundabout junction with Kenilworth, which was designed by the architectural partnership of Hugh Carmichael and Alfred Gresham Jones and built in 1859.
From the Ordnance Survey it is evident that most of the houses were built by 1875; they differ in scale and type and include large detached homes on wide plots, semi-detached redbricks, some unfussy and some with pretty oriel windows, and a grand terrace of decorative three-storey over-basement houses, also designed by Jones, close to Rathgar Junior School. One of these, number 59 – a beautifully restored five-bed – is among the few properties on the road to have changed hands in recent years; according to the Property Price Register, it sold in June for more than €2.5 million, two years after having sold for €2.3 million; number 9 was sold for €1.624 million in 2019, number 50 sold in 2016 for €1.685 million, and number 53 was sold in 2016 and again in 2017 for about €1.1 million.
At the Rathgar Road end, number 42 (built in 1863) was bought in 2010, for €1 million, by a woman who moved to the city for a different pace of life. She is now planning to return to the countryside and has put her fully restored, meticulously maintained and exuberantly decorated home on the market through DNG with an asking price of €1.95 million.
From the kerb, number 42 presents as one of a pair of attractive, double-fronted redbricks with details picked out in yellow brick. Between the two is an arched passageway, also fringed with yellow, that leads to the back gardens and is secured at each end by a gate. The southerly aspect is almost too sunny for the plants, says the owner, who has grown tomatoes in pots out the front. There is a neat bin store on a plinth behind the hedge, and space to park a car behind gates.
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Inside, the owner has configured the layout of the 213sq m (2,293sq ft) to her own requirements; there is a bedroom to the right of the warm pinky-orange hall, and a study to the left. This latter room has a rather marvellous marble fireplace, sourced in London, with a lion on either side of it. “My approach is to choose what looks lovely here,” she says.
The main livingroom is on the floor above, a dramatic space painted, like much of the house, in Teresa’s Green, a kind of duck-egg, by Farrow & Ball. Its depth varies according to the light in the house and is a suitable backdrop for the owner’s collection of artworks, some of them painted by her mother.
All of the windows were dressed by Kevin Kelly Interiors and the sumptuous fabric in the curtains here, with cerise and saffron flowers picked up in the furniture, creates an inviting focal point, with two tall double-glazed sash windows facing south.
Off this room is a lovely bedroom with complementary decor, a bright en suite big enough for an oval bath, and elegant wardrobes where details are picked out in gold leaf to match the mirror; the attention to detail is equally impressive in the internal layouts. A new owner could make this into a dressingroom, thus creating a main suite in this part of the house.
On this floor, along with the main bathroom, is another bedroom, and a fourth is at the top of the house; both have views across rooftops and treetops. A long, gracious window links these floors and an even taller one at hall level, originally a door to the garden, lights the lobby into the guest bathroom where a wall of gleaming onyx presents another unexpected flourish. The owner’s love of Venetian glass light shades and fittings extends even to the bathrooms.
A short staircase curves down to the snugly informal livingroom, created out of the old kitchen, with the walls faced in brick and the space warmed by a stove. A TV unfurls from a corner cupboard and the Bang & Olufsen sound system radiates from this room.
Along with replumbing, rewiring and installing a ventilation system 10 years ago – the Ber is an impressive C2 – the owner added a kitchen/diningroom with sky-blue wooden units by Newcastle Design and rooflights in the apex to draw light from east and west.
French doors lead out to the cutest garden, with a “water wall” made from old granite blocks and steps, and careful planting in pots and beds including tree ferns and slug-defying hostas. It forms a real oasis on an already quiet road that is yet so close to Rathgar and Rathmines villages, with ready access to the city centre.
