Tower House - an extended Martello Tower guiding €1.75 million - makes a unique holiday home near the capital, writes Orna Mulcahy, Property Editor
Had the Famous Five come to Ireland for one of their adventures they might well have ended at Tower House, a Martello tower on an acre of garden running down to the beach at Portrane, Co Dublin.
Think buckets and spades, sand in the sandwiches and mysterious signals from the lighthouse and you have the essence of this unique holiday home which was for many years owned by an English family.
Tom Day of Lisney is guiding €1.75 million prior to auction on June 28th for the property which includes a cut-stone boathouse and a guest cottage.
Tower House is being sold by bookseller Derek Hughes of Hughes & Hughes who spent many happy holidays there as a child. He had hoped to continue holidaying there with his family but plans change and the Hugheses now spend most of their time on the other side of the city and in Co Wicklow. Tower House is on the open market for the first time in several decades. New owners will need a definite romantic streak to live with the elements in this beautiful and blustery spot.
With views across to Lambay Island, Howth Head and the Sugar Loaf in the misty distance, Tower House is a find for anyone wanting to escape. The prosperous and pretty village of Donabate is just three miles away, but turning in at the gates of Tower House is like entering another era. On one side of the property is an old fashioned caravan park, on the other is a row of coast guards cottages awaiting renovation.
Tower House has the prime position with its walled garden offering some shelter from the sea breezes that have buffeted it since 1806. One of a series of towers built along the coast in the Napoleonic era, the tower walls are several feet thick, which doesn't leave a lot of room for living space - originally soldiers billeted to the tower slept in a stone cell near the roof.
Extensions in the 1930s and the 1960s added a series of rooms to make it function as a home and give it views in all directions. While they may damage its integrity as a tower, they work quite well inside, adding a curved livingroom, a diningroom, entrance hall with cute porthole windows and bedrooms overhead.
The centre of the tower has an interesting timber staircase rising to the first floor - like the mahogany doors leading to the diningroom, it is said to have been salvaged from Dublin's Theatre Royal.
The kitchen is narrow and galley-style, with a large walk-in pantry nearby. The kitchen opens directly into a garage which offers scope for further development. The diningroom is another long narrow room with space for a big table and chairs and several armchairs.
Upstairs, the three bedrooms have a cosy seaside feel with space for lots of beds and picture windows looking out to sea. They share a modern bathroom that is directly off the hall on the ground floor.
A teeny door on the upstairs landing opens to a passage leading to a stone staircase that spirals upwards and comes out on the roof of the tower which has been decked over.
The gardens are quite elaborate, with low walls and granite paved pathways dividing a series of springy turf lawns bounded by hardy and colour shrubs.
Thousands of daffodils dance here in spring while summer produces some rare and unusual carnations.
For a virtual tour of this property click on nicemove.ie
