New plans leave coast clear for €3.75m Sandycove site

Rockfort is coming back on the market with planning permission for a modern house that will make the most of the sea views

The current owners of Rockfort, 9 Sandycove Point, in Sandycove, Co Dublin, bought it less than three years ago for €3.1 million and have just put it back on the market asking €3.75 million.

So why the increased price tag? The house, a not unattractive 1930s arts and crafts style house on over half an acre hasn’t been renovated or even lived in since the current owners bought it but is coming back to the market with something else to offer. It has planning permission, granted by Dún Laoghaire Rathdown County Council last summer, for a very contemporary flat-roofed three-storey 487 sq m house that makes the most of the dramatic sea views. The selling agent Sherry FitzGerald reckons it is the last remaining landholding in the area that hasn’t been “subjected to infill development”.

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An aerial view of Rockfort.

The owners went for planning permission previously for a 575sq m house but were refused permission in June 2011 on the grounds its size would impact on the architectural conservation area.

While you could live in the house as it is, it is really being marketed as an opportunity to flatten and rebuild to make the most of the site – but whoever takes it on will need deep pockets.

As well as having commanding views over Sandycove Point to the front, a Martello tower (the James Joyce centre) and the rocky outcrop beneath it loom large over one side of the rear garden. The front door of Rockfort is on the Sandycove Point side of the house but it has a gated vehicular entrance and a pedestrian entrance on Sandycove Avenue North.

If someone were to buy it and proceed with the 487sq m house designed by De Blacam and Meagher, it could cost anywhere up to €1 million on top of the asking price – assuming it fetches the asking price. A new owner would have to submit a new planning application if they intended to build a house on the site but,for any reason, don’t like the current plan.

The plan for the house, which includes a lift, is elaborate and involves a kitchen/ diningroom at ground floor level and four reception rooms overlooking the south-facing rear garden, which would be laid out to include a tennis court. Five bedrooms including a master suite would radiate off the first floor landing to take advantage of the sea views and there would be a sea floor above with a study, a livingroom and a roof garden. A garden studio living quarters and car port would provide separate accommodation.

The existing two-storey house has the fusty smell and cold-to-the-bone feel of a house that’s unoccupied. You can only see the top storey of the house from the Sandycove Point side and there are three rooms on this level. The style of the house, with fairly modestly proportioned leaded and shuttered windows, means you don’t get the full impact of the sea and garden views.

There’s a galley kitchen off one of the rooms at this level. Downstairs, a sitting room overlooks the garden and there are two other rooms, which were used as bedrooms.

Between these rooms is a surprisingly modern family bathroom with cream tiling and contemporary fittings. There’s also a passageway of wardrobes, some in disrepair.

The garden has quite a high patio with steps down to a gravelled pathway and an expanse of lawn. A section of the garden is planted with shrubs and there’s a two-bed self contained garden studio, occupied by a tenant, with a good sized kitchen/dining room with a partially glazed roof, a living room and an en suite main bedroom with a vaulted ceiling and velux windows.