A Regency villa near the seafront in Monkstown, Co Dublin, built around 1829, is a bright, airy house with excellent views of the sea from large bay windows on either side of the front hall.
The Albany, a single-storey-over-garden-level villa, originally with just over half an acre of gardens that stretched down to the coast road, was sold in 2014 for €3.3 million. The new owner then split the garden and built a modernist house designed by RKD architects at the bottom of the lawn, beside the coast road. As the new house is “recessed to one corner of the site,” says a report on the building, “the existing residence retains views through the site and to Howth beyond”.
The Albany, now on 0.28 acres, has been rented for the past 10 years for €9,500 a month. Freshly painted and staged for sale, the 325sq m (3,508sq ft) five-bed on Albany Avenue, Monkstown, Co Dublin, is for sale for €3.75 million through Sherry FitzGerald. It has solar panels on the roof, an electric car charger in the front garden and a D2 Ber. It is not a protected structure.
It’s an elegant house with the simple clean lines of its period, painted a pale grey, with pale grey carpeting nearly everywhere. Granite steps lead up to a front door with a fanlight over it. A front porch opens into long hall front hall which reaches back through a series of arches to a bathroom at the far end.
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The drawing room on the left has a high ceiling, a large open fireplace with a pale marble mantel and a bay window with French doors opening into the garden. Double doors with a fanlight over them open into a room fitted out as a study at the back of the house. It has an open fireplace with a timber mantel and single-glazed sash windows.
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Three of the five bedrooms are on this floor; the main bedroom on the right of the front hall has the same sea views as the drawing room through the wide curved bay window, with French doors opening on to a patio below. A recessed mirror behind the bed has a slightly strange fanlight-shaped decoration in front. An archway off the bedroom opens into a large very smart modern bathroom with a beige-tiled floor.
There are two more double bedrooms on either side of the hall towards the back of the house; one has a large dressing room that could be turned into an en suite bathroom.
The kitchen/dining room is off the hall at the back of the house. It has a parquet floor, white units, black Corian countertops and a green Aga. It’s divided by the counter from the dining area which opens through French doors on to a patio at the back of the house. It has a large porthole window looking into the front garden.
A sunroom towards the end of the hall has a timber-effect tiled floor, windows the length of the room on both sides and an arched glazed roof with fitted blinds. It opens into a mostly tiled smart family bathroom with a claw-foot bath and large shower.
Steep stairs with a rope banister lead down from the hall to the garden level. Accommodation here includes a family/TV room, with a recess with space for a large TV; two bedrooms, one single and one double with an en suite shower and a walk-in dressing room; a good-sized utility room with an overhead pulley clothes airer suspended from the ceiling and a big wine cellar.
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Outside, the landscaped front lawn, bordered by mature shrubs, hedging and flowers, is private behind high granite walls and wooden electronic gates. Tiered flower beds lead up to the front door and a tall, old beech tree stands at one side; a gravelled space at the other side has room to park several cars. A quirky feature is an arched Gothic-style door in a stretch of brick wall that leads nowhere. A wide paved patio sheltered by high walls opens off the kitchen and dining room at the back of the house.
The new house at the bottom of the Albany’s lawn is called the Albany Cois Fharraige and must have added to confusion for local postmen: nearby off Albany Avenue are two more separate houses, Albany House and Albany Lodge. The Albany is a short walk to the seafront and Salthill Dart station, and is close to Monkstown village.
