When someone says “South Beach”, it conjures up images of buff and tanned pneumatic eye candy. This is, after all, the place that spawned the South Beach Diet. The district in Miami, Florida, is also famous for its Streamline Moderne art-deco frontage.
Ireland doesn’t have a South Beach but Rush, in north Co Dublin, the one-time holiday resort for the upwardly mobile middle classes, does have a South Strand. This crescent-shaped stretch of mica is separated from the town’s other beach, North Strand, by Rush harbour.
If you love the sea, the View on South Strand is a little piece of heaven. Built in the mid-noughties, it has many Miami flourishes: sunburst windows, columns, a 25ft outdoor heated swimming pool, a beach bar, a hole-in-the-wall hacienda, and a decked outdoor dining area. Lambay Island frames the vista.
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The house’s modest frontage belies its size. It is 385sq m (4,144sq ft) and has a large open-plan kitchen-dining-living space that stretches the width of the house. The view sweeps across the entire house, and double doors open out from the diningroom to a sheltered outdoor eating area. The black gloss Miele-applianced kitchen has a pitched roof about 15ft high at its zenith.
Two steps take you from the dining area up into the roomy livingroom, which has a gas-insert fire with black slate surround and an equally large flatscreen TV above it, and acres of black leather sofas. Indeed, the decor throughout is sleek bachelor pad.
There are two bedrooms on the ground floor, both of which have a spa-like step down into showers that can also be filled to become plunge baths. There is also a home office. At the far end of the house is a family room with a Dutch-style steep staircase leading up to a mezzanine bedroom. A tiny door opens through to the bedroom next door – kids will get a real kick out of this feature.
Down the hall is a sittingroom with an apex window that has a view of the sky and seascape. This is the best room in the house and photography does not do it justice.
'Cribs' style
Next door is the master bedroom, another room with fantastic views. It also has its own private balcony. The slope of the roof in parts of this room is quite low, which may cause problems for tall people. The bathroom has black tiling, and a Vogue double jacuzzi-style bath that is worthy of an episode of Cribs. There is also a good-sized dressingroom.
The house is asking €875,000 through agent Ganly Walters. It has a wooden perimeter fence that blocks some of the view from the downstairs windows but it does give privacy. In front of the beach is a public car park and public toilets. There is no direct access to the beach from the house.
South Strand itself is a small cul de sac that is a two-minute walk from Rush’s main street.
