Ultra modern boomtime house in Glenageary for €1.395m

Bought in the boom, this sleek property was built around its garden to catch the sun all day

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Address: 4 Traverslea Close, Glenageary Road Lwr, Glenageary, Co Dublin
Price: €1,395,000
Agent: JLL

When estate agent Conor O'Gallagher was looking for a home over a decade ago, he had a period home in mind – then saw the plans for an uber-modern house to be built in Glenageary. He bought 4 Traverslea Close off plans close to the height of the boom for €1.65 million, moving in with his wife Susan 18 months later in 2006.

His house, one of three adjacent to each other at the entrance to the Traverslea Close/Traverslea Woods development built in the early noughties, is truly modern. Designed by architect Stephen Manning of McCrossan O'Rourke Manning Architects, it is a tall, very bright building with a curved zinc roof, very high ceilings and lots of glazing (all double) throughout. It also has surround sound, individually controlled in each room, and wireless-controlled heating.

Decorated in contemporary style, painted white or shades of pale grey, with solid oak doors and floors, it has been a comfortable family home "where everything works extremely well", says O'Gallagher. Now the family are moving on and 4 Traverslea Close, Glenageary Road Lower, Glenageary, Co Dublin, is for sale for €1.395 million through JLL, where O'Gallagher is head of residential.

The double-height entrance hall, with a 23ft high ceiling and a glazed minstrel gallery looking over it, sets the tone for the rest of the house. The drawingroom, opening through glazed doors on the left of the hall, has floor-to-ceiling and wall-to-wall glazed windows and doors at the front and back of the room. Like the family room, it has a log-effect gas fire. The house has gas-fired central heating and a B3 BER rating.

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The heart of the home is the kitchen/diningroom/family room at the end of the hall: the kitchen widens out into the family room, which has a 13ft high arched ceiling with industrial steel beams. A wall of floor-to-ceiling glazed doors slide open into the small garden, effectively an outdoor room – the doors from the drawingroom also open into it. It’s very private, with the high redbrick wall of the original Traverslea House at the back, next to Glengeary Road Lower: you can just see the top of the bus stop outside. Raised flowerbeds and some built-in seating edge a small astroturf lawn.

The kitchen has pale quartz countertops, cream high gloss units and a good-sized utility room off it. There is also slightly angled playroom off the family room, originally meant to be a bedroom: concealed plumbing means that an en suite could be built in the room.

Upstairs there are three double bedrooms (the main one en suite), all with fitted wardrobes, and a smart family bathroom off a very bright landing.

There’s room to park three cars outside. A small beehive hut-shaped structure in the green space shared by the three modern houses turns out to be a listed bomb shelter with a small entrance where the children of the houses play, says O’Gallagher. 4 Traverslea Close has an annual management charge of €2,000.

The refurbished gate lodge – number 1 Traverslea Close – sold for €1.023 million in 2014 and the refurbished Traverslea House for €2.35 million in 2016. The handsome redbrick was built in the late 19th century for Ivy Hone, a sister of artist Nathaniel Hone. Traverslea Woods, a development of apartments built like Traverslea Close in the grounds of the original house by O'Malley Construction, is towards the back of the site behind electronic gates.

Frances O'Rourke

Frances O'Rourke

Frances O'Rourke, a contributor to The Irish Times, writes about homes and property