The owner of 106 Merrion Road, in Ballsbridge, knew what he was getting into when he bought and refurbished this detached house in the heart of Dublin’s embassy belt. Having grown up two doors down, at number 110, Ed Martin knows this part of Dublin 4 well, and, as a third-generation property investor with more than 40 years’ experience as a property consultant – advising residential and commercial clients on designing, planning, building and renovating, and providing a bespoke house building service for overseas clients – he knows what it takes to create the ideal family home.
With number 106, Martin has created a stunning family home along one of Dublin’s most prestigious roads, just across from Shrewsbury Road, close to the RDS, St Vincent’s University Hospital and Sandymount Strand, and just a short hop from the city centre. The refurbishment, in 2010, transformed the house from a spacious 245sq m (2,300sq ft) home to an even more spacious 520sq m (5,600sq ft) dwelling, with superb, high-end features throughout. It’s in turnkey condition for any family to move in, but there’s also room for a family to put their own individual stamp on the property.
The wide, bright entrance hall gives you a sense of the house’s added dimensions, with generous ceiling heights throughout and Italian marble flooring that extends into the guest WC, utility room and kitchen.
Beyond the hall is the stunning rear extension which runs the entire width (the house has also been widened) and height of the property. This extension features kitchen-dining-living area, and is pretty much the hub of activity, with ample room for a large family to spend time together.
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Custom-built sliding doors and windows by Embankment Joinery lead out to a large, lawned back garden with patio space for outdoor dining and entertaining. A plant-storage room in the garden houses the heat pump (Martin was one of the first in the country to install an energy-efficient heat exchange system) and water tanks (so no water-tank noises in the house, and no worries about leaks).
Martin chose the bespoke Persian walnut Shaker-style kitchen himself, and he made a deal with the shop to buy the display unit because he wanted it to look lived-in. “But then they told me the boss had sold it to another customer,” recalls Martin. Luckily, they had another kitchen of the same design which they sold to him at the agreed price. “Turned out the other buyer was a good friend of mine, and when I went into his house, I just said, ‘Nice kitchen!’”
The kitchen is fitted out with top-of-the-range integrated appliances, including an American Wolf cooker, Gaggenau steam oven, wine fridge, two dishwashers, Sub-Zero fridge-freezer and Zip instant hot and filtered cold water tap. Underfloor heating runs throughout, and the Ber is B1.
Through a secret door behind the kitchen is a guest bedroom suite, which can also be accessed via a separate door at the front of the house. It comprises a bedroom looking out to the back garden, with four-poster bed, spacious dressingroom and a large bathroom. This is the perfect place to accommodate a nanny, au pair, grandparent or older teenager.
There are two reception rooms to the front of the house, one on either side of the hall – a diningroom and a lounge – and a generous-sized utility room, but your eye will be drawn to the impressive, sweeping staircase, adorned with skilfully cut, curved Italian glass, and with an enormous skylight bringing in dazzling light.
Upstairs, the main bedroom can’t fail to impress; looking out over the back garden, it exudes peace and tranquillity and has a spacious Zen-like en suite separated from the bedroom by a glazed wall and door, with a Duravit free-standing bath and Gessi shower with rainwater showerhead.
If you want to really bolster your sense of calm, there’s also a gym and yoga room on this level. We’re not talking about a room with just a couple of exercise machines and yoga mats thrown in: this is a fully functioning gym room, air-conditioned and with timber floor and floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking the back garden. You could run a fitness club here.
Under the floor is plumbing for an en suite, so the room can be easily converted back to a bedroom if needed. There are two more double bedrooms up here, and a bedroom that is used as a study-office, plus Jack & Jill bathroom en suite and another spacious dressingroom with ample wardrobe space.
There are also mysterious little doors in the upstairs bedrooms about the size of a small cupboard. These, Martin reveals, are handy laundry chutes which means there’s no need to keep laundry baskets in the bedrooms; just throw your clothes or linen into the chutes and they’ll miraculously appear in the utility room downstairs, ready to be washed. Alas, they won’t miraculously reappear clean and ironed: that will still have to be done manually.
On the second floor is a huge games room with billiard table and Velux windows to the rear. Behind darkened glass is a large cinema room, also air-conditioned with tiered seating and a great big red couch to the front that can fit several kids and their popcorn. This is where Martin and his family watched many a rugby international. There’s also a large bathroom, so your teenagers could stay up here all day, emerging only for their dinner. There’s also a good 50sq m of storage space behind the eaves, with four access points, so plenty of room to keep the Christmas and Halloween decorations.
Attached to one wall of the games room is a little piece of local history: two stall seats recovered from the old Lansdowne Road stadium just before it was demolished to make way for the Aviva.
“My dad had permanent tickets for Lansdowne Road matches, and when he brought me to matches, these were our seats,” explains Martin. “After he passed away, and when they were knocking down Lansdowne Road, I asked one of the contractors if I could take the two seats – so she got an angle-grinder, cut them out right there and said, ‘There you go.’” Prospective buyers should note that the seats are not included in the sale. “We’ll be taking those with us,” he confirms.
With both their children long grown up and living in the UK and the US, Martin and his wife are ready to “rightsize”, and of course they’ll be looking for somewhere in the neighbourhood they know and love so well.
Number 106 Merrion Road is for sale through Lisney Sotheby’s International Realty asking €4.45 million.
