We’ve all developed a better sense of what the work-life balance should be and rediscovered what brings us joy. For Marie Kondo it’s a decluttered house, but for hobbyists it’s the space to indulge their pastime, be it vintage cars, crafting, market gardening or keeping horses.
Eden House, about two miles south of the village of Oldtown, is a sprawling 1980s-built bungalow on about 2 acres of post-and-rail paddock. Extending to about 275sq m (2,960sq ft), there is about the same again in square area in stables, lofts, workshops and garages – yes, all plural.
Accessed via a set of electric gates hung on redbrick walls, it offers privacy and immersion in the tillage farming of north Co Dublin.
Constructed by a builder as his home in the late 1980s, the current owner bought it from him and established a market garden, importing the greenhouse from Belgium and growing tomatoes, carrots, lettuce, beans and even asparagus, his daughter recalls. The freezer was filled with bounty from the garden.
Designed as a bungalow, the five-bedroom property already has loads of space but there is a trend towards bigging up this style of house, going up to add a second floor, which is something the next owner could also look at.
As it is, there is a formal drawing room that adjoins a separate dining room with a huge kitchen that is sun-filled although the cabinet part is very much in the internal part of the room but this could easily be reconfigured.
There are four good-sized bedrooms on one side of the house plus a fifth on the other that could form part of a self-contained unit for a childminder or a relative. It would be suitable for a grandparent, for as well as an en suite bedroom there is a back kitchen and a back door.
The views from all the windows are of rolling countryside, tillage farmland planted with potatoes, some of which make it into Keogh’s crisps, and rapeseed.
For someone who needs to travel regularly, it is also close to the airport and to Swords. The D1 Ber-rated detached house is seeking €775,000 through agents Sherry FitzGerald.
