After almost seven years, the 11 houses that make up the main part of Maxwell Square, an infill development in Rathmines designed by Extend Architects and built by Amazon Developments, are ageing well, with the off-white render and dark grey, powder-coated aluminium cladding staying crisp.
Number 10, a three/four-bed semi which is for sale through Sherry FitzGerald for €825,000, is in the southwest corner of the wedge-shaped plot, beside a little green area. Maxwell Square, on the former Winfield Motors site, is off Maxwell Road which links Upper Rathmines Road and Frankfort Avenue.
The houses are designed to maximise light, with huge windows in every room, good use of Veluxes and glass doors all across the kitchen at the back. Many of the owners, as at number 10, chose to convert the integrated garage into extra living space while retaining a space about a metre deep at the front for storing bikes, buggies and other equipment. Two years ago, the owners replaced the kitchen with very smart, off-white handleless fittings by Nordic Elements; they kept the sink in the Silestone-topped island but added a useful appliance cupboard as well as a wooden floor throughout downstairs. Another of that company’s clever, stuff-swallowing solutions are the birch-ply bench, shelves and cupboards that line a wall of the kitchen and of the family room in the garage conversion.
Under the stairs there is a guest toilet and some pop-out drawers. Off the first-floor landing there are two rooms: to the rear, a wide, sunny livingroom/office/music room that could be a fourth bedroom, and at the front, the main bedroom with shower en suite and an extra space with a window that could be sectioned off as a dressing area or an office.
At the top of the stairs, lit by a large Velux, are two more bedrooms, a cute single at the front and a double at the back. Between these is a good-sized family bathroom with a roof light. It’s a very flexible layout that maximises the 112sq m (1,206sq ft) and manages to be both bright and cosy, with a Ber of A3 due to solar panels and other energy-efficient technologies, housed in a plant room on the landing.
The outside space, while nicely fitted with seats made of decking and a real suntrap on a bright spring morning, is limited in size and as most of the front square is taken up with car parking spaces – one per house – small children will be glad of the many parks and playgrounds around. There’s also a choice of local primary and secondary schools and a great row of shops at Upper Rathmines, about 100m away along Maxwell Lane. Rathmines and Rathgar villages are within shouting distance and there are all kinds of sports clubs nearby, as well as regular buses along Rathgar Road and the Luas at Cowper. The annual management fee is €1,000.
According to the Property Price Register, the most recent sale recorded is that of number 8, in January, also through Sherry FitzGerald, for €806,000. Next door, number 9 is on the market through the same agent, with current bids exceeding the asking price of €795,000. There, the kitchen is in the garage conversion, so all the living space is downstairs and all four upstairs rooms are bedrooms. Also for sale is number 16 Maxwell Road, built as part of this development but with a redbrick exterior to blend in with its period neighbours. With three bedrooms, three bathrooms, 101sq m (1,087sq ft) and a Ber of A3, it’s on the market through Mullery O’Gara with current offers in excess of the €895,000 asking price.
