Family homes in leafy Rathfarnham starting from €775,000

Riversdale is a small development of four- and five-bed houses in Rathfarnham arranged around a bend in the river Dodder just off Butterfield Avenue.

It is set in the grounds of the villa-style Riversdale House, once lived in by WB Yeats, and the inspiration for two of his poems, What Then? and An Acre of Grass.

The house is looking forlorn as it awaits refurbishment, which is due to start in the next few months. But in its former gardens buyers looking for a fine detached family home will find it in the leafy corner "where plums and cabbages grew" as Yeats wrote in An Acre of Grass.

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The properties are built by Bushnell Investments, owned by the Newry-based McGreevy family. Other recent Bushnell developments include Blackberry Hill in Carrickmines and Carrig Mill in Greystones.

They are also currently working on another high-profile development on the grounds of Neptune House in Blackrock.

Ferreira Architecture, who did Albany House in Ballybrack for Cairn, and La Touche, Greystones and St Mary’s Baldoyle for New Generation Homes, designed the two very different house styles that are being brought to market through agents DNG.

Classically decorated

The five-bedroom property has a redbrick and bay front and the show house is classically decorated throughout by House and Garden Presentation Services who have also done the four-bedroom showhouse.

Set over five levels the 247sq m/2,659sq ft property boasts plenty of space to accommodate family life.

At hall level there is a fine formal sitting room to the front with a large-open plan kitchen, dining, living room to the rear. Off it is a good-sized utility room with its own back door.

The garden while small when compared to the size of the house is well laid out with a patio leading up to a raised lawn. Mature trees have been retained and help to make the show space feel established.

Two of the property’s five bedrooms are situated on the return. These share a shower room. The master is situated on the first floor and has French windows leading out to a small balcony.

It includes a light-filled walk-in wardrobe. The fourth bedroom is on the first-floor return and is set out as a twin room with a soaring pitched ceiling making it feel bigger than it is. Adjacent to it is a space that has been set up as a study – a nice touch that separates homework from play and sleep.

Listed as the fifth bedroom, the room at the top of the house has been set up as a teenage den. It’s ideally positioned as far away as possible from the formal sitting room downstairs. Prices for this style of property start from €875,000.

The second house style has a more contemporary feel. Measuring about 165sq m / 1776sq ft, it has four bedrooms.

Child-friendly

There’s a den to the front with the back arranged to an open-plan design comprising a living room that overlooks the garden and leads through to a large eat-in kitchen with a child-friendly island that has a raised stone counter with a lower kid-level breakfast bar by Tinahealy-based Fitzgerald Kitchens.

Three of the four doubles are on the first floor with the master, which is set to the front, having access to small balcony and a shower en-suite.

While it doesn’t have an en-suite the large double to the rear feels like a more private place for parents of small kids to install themselves because the family bathroom adjoins it.

On the second floor there is another good-sized double with a shower room across the landing and an internal storage room. This style is asking from €775,000.

The finish throughout is first rate but the large air-to-water heat pump fan in the garden will require some landscaping to screen its unsightly bulk from view.

There is parking for up to two cars with each house. The river Dodder runs alongside this part of the development but access to it will be screened to safeguard small children.