'Our child couldn't go out on the street on her own where we lived before'

After 16 years living in a two-bedroom Victorian house in Sandymount, actor Philip O'Sullivan, his wife Sandra and six-year-old daughter Jeanne-Marie set out on a new life in a ground floor apartment in Stillorgan, where they've been for eight weeks.

Still very much in the honeymoon period, Philip waxes lyrical about his new apartment at the Grange development where he and Sandra have an enclosed landscaped south-west facing terrace, overlooking a tennis court and oak trees.

"It's lovely sitting on the terrace in autumn watching the squirrels and foxes doing their thing."

The sale of their Sandymount house last year gave them the funds to buy the apartment and indulge another dream: they are currently looking for a dream holiday home in France.

Philip is a familiar face on the Irish acting scene, well known for his role as Fr Tracey in Glenroe and more recently appearing as Archbishop Wareham in The Tudors.

He is currently in rehearsals for Paul Howard's Last Days of the Celtic Tiger due to open in the Olympia in November playing Ross O'Carroll Kelly's daddy, who is locked up in Mountjoy on corruption charges.

"It's an adventure," enthuses Philip about the apartment experience. "A few years ago we probably wouldn't have dreamt of an apartment.

"We looked at every option, trading up, trading down, a variety of locations but when we saw the ad for the Grange and saw what was on offer we were amazed. It is very secure living with a concierge and landscaped grounds."

Other selling points were the utility space, "buckets of storage" and the extra bathroom and bedroom they gained on their previous home.

Jeanne-Marie, who Philip describes as "very sussed", has lots of secure open space to run around.

"She couldn't go out on the street on her own where we lived before."

The concierge service is a big selling point. "In this country many people are not really aware what a concierge does, they think they're doormen. They book taxis, fix light bulbs, organise refuse collection, let visitors in and Ted and his team at the Grange really helped us with teething problems moving in."

He doesn't consider the €2,500 service charge expensive and reckons time and money is saved on tending a garden and employing various tradesmen to do jobs. "We had a garden in Vavasour Square, and I had to pretend I loved maintaining it - someone had to do it."

The Grange will have a total of 300 apartments when finished and according to Philip, it will have a high owner-occupier ratio and a good mix of young, old and families, and there are plans for a gallery space and café to create a community atmosphere. ...

He is not ruling out another move in the distant future. "People are supposed to have an average of four moves in their lives. In our marriage we've had only one, there may well be another one, although I'm in my early fifties now and I'm very happy here.

"Apartments are the way of the future. The trick is making it a community with a heart."