Something stunning about Louis Lane

Number 3 Louis Lane has won awards and starred in magazines, books, on TV and and in a movie. Now it's for sale for €1m, writes Bernice Harrison.

For anyone interested in design, architecture or even film, there's a sense of instant recognition when you walk into 3 Louis Lane in Rathmines.

The stunning mews house has featured on the big screen in About Adam, where it fitted the bill as the ultra modern home of the man-about-town played by Stuart Townsend; it's been on the small screen in interior design programmes, and it has appeared in books and magazines particularly after its architects, McCullough Mulvin, earned a special mention in the AAI awards in 1999 for its design.

The way the owners went about building their house is a clear example of how it should be done. Musicians Peter Sweeney and Helen Roycroft found the site at the end of a garden of a house on Leinster Road. But before they bought it, they involved architect Neil McCullough who knew about their passion for modern architecture and design and who saw that it would be possible to maximise the space and build something special on the site.

The biggest decision was to turn the conventional idea of a house upside down and that decision resulted in a truly spectacular living space. At 54 ft long with floor-to-ceiling windows at either end, the main living area is an airy, white rectangular box with high ceilings, clever storage along the walls and wide plank maple flooring throughout.

Over the carport end of the room is the dining/kitchen area. The kitchen units are tall, white, specially designed by the architects for the space and provide the level of storage that such a minimalist interior requires. At the other end of the room is the living area, with a cool contemporary open fireplace and opaque glass framing a defined view of the garden below.

The staircase comes up into this room and over it is a large skylight - again the emphasis is on bringing as much natural light as possible in.

Downstairs, where the flooring is entirely limestone, there are three bright bedrooms, two conventional doubles and a third designed for versatility in that its doors are floor-to-ceiling folding panels. This room can be cut off and used as a bedroom, or in these owners' case, a music room, or even left permanently open so that it's possible to look from the front door right through to the back garden.

The main bedroom is at the back of the house and it and the bedroom to the front, as well as having large picture windows, both have slim windows that look into a miniature Japanese-style patio to the side of the house that's like a secret internal garden - it's one of the many interesting design features that are everywhere in this mews.

The bathroom was recently redecorated by its design conscious and meticulous owners, who went for mosaic tiling and Phillipe Starck fittings. A utility area runs the length of the house to the side.

The house is at the end of Louis Lane and there is a carport integrated into the design. At back of the house there is a 45 ft long south-facing garden.

The peaceful, quiet mews house has 186 sq metres (2,000 sq ft) of space and is for auction on April 7th through Sherry FitzGerald with a guide of €1 million.

For a virtual tour of this property, click on www.nicemove.ie