Most of the time it’s easy to spot the home of the original builder on Victorian terraces. They are normally the ones with extra details, sometimes more intricate cornicing, sometimes larger window features. On St Lawrence Road in Clontarf, number 7 lies at the end the first terrace of houses, meaning it has side access. In contrast to the single-fronted Victorian neighbours, number 7 is double-fronted – a rare enough find among period houses from the era. It is known as Lansdale House, and is on one of the most desirable residential roads in Clontarf.
Due to its double frontage, it has three fine formal reception rooms with a later and fourth reception room lying to the rear, off the kitchen.
This is one of the real selling points of the property, which extends to a generous 295sq m (3,175sq ft). Having four reception rooms of generous size lends itself to entertaining. “We have about 20 people over for Christmas, and the place never feels cramped,” the owner says, describing their home as a “very sociable space”.
Number 7 appears on the Property Price Register as having sold for €2 million in 2021. Since then, the current owners have stripped it back, changing the place cosmetically.
Inside its redbrick facade – flooded with natural light that is now reflected in an all-white palette – the property retains some lovely details, such as marble horseshoe chimney pieces in both reception rooms to the left of the hall and the third reception room to the front. All three have ornate coving and ceiling roses in addition to (the now polished) original wood flooring that runs through these rooms and front hallway.
To the rear, the dining/living area (added in 1995) has quarry tiling, as does the kitchen that serves the space. For storage there’s an adjacent boot room, with access to the garden and outside utility room.
Upstairs, an en-suite bedroom lies on the return with four further bedrooms on the first floor. The generous main bedroom occupies the entire width of the property and has a fine dressingroom and en suite. There’s also a study on this floor and new owners, if requiring a sixth bedroom, can convert the dressingroom back to its original form.
More space can be found in a garden room to the rear, which extends to 75sq m (813sq ft) and resembles a small house. While it currently works as a hangout for teenagers and their friends, with a pool table and TV, the owners had intended to turn it into a granny flat with the addition of a floor upstairs. Current planning permission does not allow a separate home here, but it could work well as a place for an au pair, family member or indeed as a home office or gym.
There’s also a double garage for secure off-street parking – and if new owners need more space, there’s plenty of room to extend, subject to planning permission.
It lies on about 0.2 of an acre, which owners say “feels like the countryside”. Indeed this is true of some of these houses in Clontarf as they have generous rear gardens. They are also minutes from the seafront, where you can now walk the whole way to Sutton. The area, which is about a 30-minute bus ride to Dublin city centre, has a yacht club on its doorstep, three golf courses (St Anne’s, Royal Dublin and Clontarf Golf Clubs) as well as a tennis club and a cricket club, so it ticks many boxes for families.
The owners love the flow, size and suitability for entertaining of their home, a protected structure and hence Ber-exempt, which is now on the market through Sherry FitzGerald, seeking €2.495 million.
