Life's a beach at €4.5m chic Sutton house

A lavish fit-out makes this stylish and spacious D13 beach house quite a catch, writes Fiona Tyrrell.

AIRY NEW ENGLAND chic is pretty hard to pull off in our grey northern climes, but the owners of a beach side house in Sutton have carried it off with extraordinary attention to detail and a bit of help from a Jack Nicholson film.

North Shore at 9B on Burrow Road in Dublin 13 is one of two homes, built on the site of a 1930s house, developed by professional renovators Mack and Nadia Lennon.

Laid out over a whopping 520sq m (5,600sq ft) and with a price tag of €4.5 million, North Shore could easily have been a trophy-house-by-numbers affair dripping with a lavish fit-out and five-star hotel-inspired interior.

Instead, the house is beautifully crafted and a monument to the good taste and creative flair of the husband and wife team.

Taking inspiration from north American beach homes, North Shore ticks all the boxes for seaside chic - colonial-style joinery, Victorian pressed-tin ceilings and a deep verandah. Details were also taken from a Baltimore beach home featured in the film As good as it gets.

There is an understated contemporary feel to the two main reception rooms.

A back hall, punctuated with bay windows with nautical-style seating, leads to the main event - a glazed octagonal kitchen with a wow-factor.

Not to upset the symmetry, there are two small utility rooms either side of the kitchen. A mezzanine gallery is home to a super cool sitting area.

Upstairs there are four double bedrooms (all en suite). The top floor is devoted to the main bedroom suite with a spa-style bathroom. Views take in Lambay Island and Ireland's Eye.

The attention to detail at North Shore is extraordinary. In addition to luxury add-ons (timber floors, home entertainment, TVs in bathrooms and a steam room), there are flourishes to impress even the most jaded interiors connoisseurs - eel skin handrails, hidden wall panels for storage, copper gutters, skirting boards that double as radiators and onyx stone light boxes. Outside there is a pretty patio area and a sunken garden with a Hobbit-like door that opens out to the great expanse of Burrow Beach.

Yours for €4.5 million through Douglas Newman Good.