The standout features of a very large, very private house off Ferndale Road in Rathmichael, Dublin 18, are a large livingroom/diningroom/kitchen and above it, off the upstairs landing, a large roof terrace. Both of them look across to the tall trees sheltering the back lawn, separating the garden from the Dublin Mountains Way (DMW) path into Rathmichael Woods.
Woodridge is a 513sq m (5,520sq ft) detached six-bed on 0.65 acres, part of it set out as a self-contained two-bed apartment. It’s for sale for €2.5 million through Lisney Sotheby’s International Realty. Built by the Archer family in 2007, it went on the market in 2008, the year leading into the property crash, but was withdrawn from sale after four price cuts, from €4 million in February 2008 to €2.5 million in October that year. The owners stayed and now, their children grown, they’re downsizing.
The house, designed by John Hodgins Architects, has oil-fired central heating, double-glazed sash windows, underfloor heating throughout and a B2 Ber rating.
The slightly quirky exterior of Woodridge – stone-fronted with dormer windows and a turret – doesn’t hint at the very bright, spacious interior of the house. The double-height entrance hall, floored with polished Travertine tiles, is very bright, with light flooding down from a large rooflight.
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A modest-sized livingroom opens off to the left, and a larger sittingroom off the right. Both have solid fuel burning stoves in their fireplaces. A door in the livingroom – which leads to the separate quarters – is closed off. The sittingroom on the right, floored with wide plank oak-effect laminate, is large, with space for a pool table and two sofas.
Glazed double doors open from the entrance hall into the room that’s the heart of the house: the kitchen/diningroom/family room stretches nearly the width of the back of Woodridge. With glazed double doors at the back and side opening into the garden and Velux windows over the family room corner, it’s a bright space floored with polished Travertine tiles.
Pink-covered dining chairs and floral-covered armchairs give it a rosy glow. There’s a large cream Aga in the kitchen, which has timber countertops and an island with a polished granite top. Off the kitchen is an enviably large utility/laundry room, a downstairs toilet and a door leading into the self-contained unit.
You could spend a lot of time in the large main bedroom, which has double doors opening onto the terrace: it has a big en suite with a rolltop bath
Two of Woodridge’s six bedrooms are in this approximately 111sq m (1,200sq ft) space, ideal as extra accommodation for family, au pair or as a guest apartment. The large main bedroom has fitted wardrobes and an en suite and glazed double doors opening into the garden; a second smaller bedroom could be a study. The sittingroom/diningroom is a good size. It’s part-separated from a galley kitchen which has a half-door opening into it. Another half-door opens into the garden, next to a cordoned-off children’s play area – one of the owners ran a playschool here in the past.
Stairs at the side of Woodridge’s front hall lead to a wide landing with a balcony overlooking the hall; opposite are sliding double-glazed doors opening onto the wide decked terrace looking over the back garden; it’s plumbed for a hot tub. (All the floors are concrete).
You could spend a lot of time in the large main bedroom, which has double doors opening onto the terrace: it has a big en suite with a rolltop bath, two sinks and a step-in shower tiled with natural stone, and two dressingrooms: one has wardrobes and shelving, the second, off the bathroom, has more wardrobes.
There’s another en suite double bedroom with a narrow door opening into a passage that opens out into a roughly 2.8sq m (30sq ft) space – it could be storage, or a place where children could play. Two more bedrooms share a Jack-and-Jill bathroom.
The garden at the back slopes up from a granite-paved patio the width of the house. There are steps up to the lawn where there’s a small greenery-fringed pond (covered with a grate). A gate in one corner opens onto the DMW path. There’s a lot of room to park at the front of the house.
There are a number of very secluded developments of large, expensive houses off both Ferndale and Rathmichael Roads. The first house on the Hillfield site was built in the 1990s and Woodridge in 2006. In 2014, a development of 11 luxury homes was built higher up on the site on land sold by the Archer family.
