Art Deco improvements in private surrounds in Blackrock

Barry and Maureen O’Neill got a taste for Art Deco design after visiting a Charles Rennie Mackintosh house outside Glasgow years ago, a taste that inspired some of the changes they’ve made to their home in Blackrock, Co Dublin, in the 35 years they’ve lived there.

Dovedale is a flat-roofed Art Deco-style house built in the 1930s that might be a standard suburban home but for these changes: there are smart maple units built into many of the rooms, from the kitchen to the livingroom, diningroom and bedrooms upstairs. It’s a house with a lot of storage. The property has been meticulously maintained – and comes with a large, lush, richly planted garden.

The detached three-bed property extends to 209sq m (2,249sq ft) and is on sale through Lisney for €1.395 million.

Near the Merrion Avenue end of Grove Avenue, Dovedale has a large tiled entrance porch (with a toilet off it), opening into a fairly small front hall. The interconnecting dining room and living room open from here to the right, with the kitchen straight ahead.

The kitchen, like all the rooms at the back of the house, has floor-to-ceiling windows or sliding glass doors opening on to the garden. Revamped about 15 years ago, it has smart maple cabinets from Seabury in Naas, polished granite countertops, pull-out larders on either side of the fridge and a mint-green tiled splashback.

Sliding doors

The kitchen opens into a small old-style conservatory with a tiled floor: it has a door to the back garden and sliding glass doors into the livingroom. There is also a neat family room off the conservatory, with a utility room off it. A door from here leads into the garage, where O’Neill stores sailing equipment.

The living room and dining room are connected by a sliding door. The maple corner unit in the diningroom, like all the built-in furniture, was done by Seabury.

Steep stairs – with a curved timber banister – lead up to three bedrooms. Two of these have built-in desks and shelving; the bedroom at the back of the house has two corner windows.

The main bedroom, with a fully tiled en suite, runs from the front to the back of the house and has a lot of built-in wardrobes – this time the timber is ash. There is also a fully tiled family bathroom with a corner bath and shower upstairs.

Outside, a path leads from a sandstone patio through the very private back garden – floodlit at night – filled with clipped bushes and colourful plants, a rockery and lawn areas. A tall yew tree halfway down the garden stands next to two apple trees, and a very tall, thick hedge guarantees privacy. There’s room to park several cars in the gravelled driveway – bordered by a lawn – at the front of of the house.