Acute angles sum up cool design at House V

A contemporary villa in Dalkey is on the market by private treaty for €6 million, writes Frank McDonald, Environment Editor

It's not often that an architect is one of the main selling points for a house, but Tom de Paor has become something of a brand and his name is prominently featured in Sherry FitzGerald's brochure for a bespoke villa nestling among pine trees off Torca Road in Dalkey.

The house was only finished last spring, but its owners have now decided to dispose of it. It's not that they don't like living there - quite the reverse - but plans to relocate to central Europe for business reasons are looming, and the price it could fetch is tempting.

Located behind a restored granite wall on the Killiney Way hill-walking route, with a eucalyptus forest opposite, the flat-roofed house looks almost modest. It's only when you get inside that you realise how large it is, with bedrooms below a largely open-plan living space.

There had been an older house on the site, once the gate lodge for San Elmo, a large Italianate villa further down the hill, but it was "a bit of a mess", as de Paor says, with ad hoc extensions and dormer windows added over the years. So he recommended demolition.

The sloping site of less than half an acre demanded something special: "A house that is simple, but with complexity too. We tried to fit it into the mountain, so there are no right angles anywhere and the spaces are almost Baroque," he explains. And there's lots and lots of glass.

There would have been even more glass, had de Paor's original scheme been built. But although Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council "were very good to us" and An Bord Pleanála too, when the late Dáithí Hanly (of San Elmo) appealed, the plan was changed.

Solid elements were introduced, partly because the frameless glazing was so expensive, and this made the house "more lean and fit". Charcoal grey walls, with external insulation, made for a more solid object, at least when you approach it from the sliding iroko gate.

The entrance is through a deep recess that leads to the livingroom, with expansive floor-to-ceiling windows and breathtaking views out over the sea through the majestic Corsican and Scots pines. There's also a cut-out triangular terrace at this level, with a glazed balustrade.

Lighting is provided through rectangular slots in the ceiling and the glazing comes with automatic blinds. The floors are finished in a dark wood laminate, with underfloor heating, and the house is air-conditioned in summer. There is a cut-out fireplace on the spine wall.

Also on this level is a study, TV room and bathroom with a pivot door and opaque glass walls. Kitchen units by Bulthaup are beside a pair of hollow cliff-like walls flanking the staircase to the bedrooms below.

Because of the geometry of the building, everything is at an angle, including the bed in the main bedroom. Off it is a walk-in closet which is about the same size as a double bedroom in one of the early Zoe apartments, while the walk-in shower is as big as a single bedroom.

The two children's bedrooms are generous, with the same floor-to-ceiling windows and seaward views. They have their own bathroom and access to a south-facing terrace. There's another bathroom beside it, with a free-standing bath as its centrepiece.

One door leads into a vast storeroom, with the exposed rock of the hill as its dramatic and unexpected backdrop. "It was all about getting around the geology by spanning it," de Paor says. "So you're always cranking the plan, always looking at oblique angles." He describes the house as "a square box, cut at 60- and 30-degree angles". What he likes most is its glazing and the way it refracts and reflects light, "like the way jewels are cut . . . we even started thinking about it that way when we were designing it".

And there are lots of doors, seven altogether, not just a front and back door in the traditional sense. "House V", as it's called, is also featured extensively in the latest Architecture Ireland, with glowing reviews from architect Emmet Scanlan and barrister John McBratney.