The owner of a house built just a few years ago likes to mix modern with period style. So when she bought a new-build on Saval Park Road in Dalkey, Co Dublin, in 2022, she made a number of changes to give her new home a subtle period look. They included changing handles on kitchen units and lights over the island to antique brass, adding coving to ceilings downstairs, dado rails in the front hall and giving the stairs in the hall a more classic look: once blond, now they have a dark wood banister with white spindles and antique brass stair rods on the taupe stairs carpet.
Number 5 Caldragh, a 170sq m (1,829sq ft) three-storey terraced four-bed is for sale through Sherry FitzGerald, seeking €1.395 million. While the Property Price Register records it as being sold for €859,030 in 2022, that figure does not include the 13.5 per cent VAT applicable to the sale of new-build homes. Taking that into account, the current owners paid €975,000 for the property.
It’s a stylish home in a good location a short walk from Dalkey – and one of its chief attractions may be its energy efficiency: with underfloor heating on the ground floor, air-to-water heat pump and mechanical heat recovery, it has an A2 Ber.
The terrace of six houses is set well back from Saval Park Road, behind the apartment units. The owner – an artist and interior designer – decluttered twice, she says, before putting the house on the market: just three years old, it is very much in walk-in condition. Features include a smart top-floor main bedroom with an en suite, walk-in wardrobe and a balcony with views over tree tops to the sea.
The front hall is bright with a black-and-white tiled floor, high ceiling and walls painted a vivid blue below dado rails, white above. Under the stairs, the owner created a panelled open-plan space for hanging coats with an upholstered bench.
The hall opens into a large living, kitchen and dining area that looks on to the back garden through floor-to-ceiling sliding doors that stretch across the back of the house, fitted with motorised electric blinds. It has a herringbone oak floor, quartz-topped island unit and counter, built-in fabric-and-leather upholstered bench next to the dining table, and wall panels. On one wall the owner created a unit with doors that look like apothecary drawers above it, a cupboard with ribbed glass, a subtle way of adding period feel to a modern room. There’s a utility room off the kitchen.
A downstairs hall toilet has a mosaic tiled floor and horizontal pink panels. A cosy room at the front of the house is fitted with a mix of modern and period furniture.
On the first floor are three bedrooms: one at the front of the house has panelled walls, floor-to-ceiling window, fitted wardrobes and an en-suite shower room. Another smaller double is the owner’s art studio. A family bathroom has a bath and smartly tiled walls and floor. Steep steps lead to the top floor, where there’s a small study and the main double bedroom: it has panelled walls, floor-to-ceiling glass doors opening on to the balcony, a smart en suite shower room and good-sized walk-in wardrobe.
Outside is a patio opening on to a modest-sized lawn surrounded by high walls. There’s parking for two cars at the front and an electric car charger. There is an annual service charge of about €1,000.
Number 5 is the first of 11 homes – six four-bedroom terraced houses and five apartments – built by developer Waterlight Homes on the site of a 1930s house on Saval Park Road to go on the market. Waterlight bought Caldragh, the house on 0.7 acres, in 2019 for €1.9 million, according to the Property Price Register.
