Noelle McCarthy moved into her Rathmines house on Valentine’s Day 2001: her two daughters, Aifric and Zoe, were four and eight and she found it was a “fantastic place for kids. All the Communions, Confirmations, the sleepovers were here. One Christmas, my entire family were here, I had 27 for dinner in the diningroom.” She says this while looking out over the large playground directly across the road in Belgrave Square, a classic railed Dublin park with lots of green space as well as the playground.
Her daughters are in their 20s now and she’s downsizing to a smaller house on Leeson Street, closer to one of her chain of four hair and beauty salons, Blow, that she launched in 2002. Number 38 Belgrave Square West, a terraced 232sq m (2,497 sq ft) two-storey over basement four-bedroom Victorian home, is now for sale for €2.15 million through Sherry FitzGerald. It is Ber exempt.
She has made modest changes to the house since she bought it – a developer had already modernised it while keeping the period features. The two large reception rooms on the left of the front hall are striking: she painted the drawingroom at the front and diningroom at the back, connected through a wide arch with double doors, a deep plum only last year, with ornate plasterwork painted white. Long gold drapes frame the windows front and back – a deep bay in the livingroom at the front, a tall sash window in the diningroom overlooking the back garden. Both rooms have white marble fireplaces, with an open fire in the drawingroom and a coal-effect gas fire in the diningroom.
The front hall has a polished timber floor and ceiling cornicing: steps at the end lead down past a study on the hall return to the basement. A livingroom with a large cast-iron fireplace painted white opens into the kitchen/breakfastroom which has a rooflight. Double doors open out to the back garden, making the livingroom a very bright space. Both rooms are floored with pale pink/grey tiles. New owners may update the kitchen, which has a breakfast bar and timber units painted white.
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One of the home’s four bedrooms is at this level, a double bedroom with a part-tiled en suite with a bath. McCarthy is particularly pleased with a small hall under the front stairs next to a door that opens to the front garden. For years, this was a black hole she says, until her builder converted it.
In the last year, she also revamped some of the rooms upstairs: she increased the size of the main bedroom by taking out fitted wardrobes – then creating a walk-in wardrobe a few steps up on the second return. (This had been a small double bedroom.) Her bedroom – a calm, uncluttered space – now has a smart new en suite with a grey tiled floor and a part-opaque tall sash window overlooking Belgrave Square. There’s a second double bedroom at the back of the house, also en suite, and a part-tiled guest bathroom with a clawfoot bath.
Many of the houses on the terrace have another bedroom over the top landing says McCarthy – so new owners might consider looking at that possibility.
Outside, at the back, steps lead up to a patio and a lawn bordered by stone walls. There’s room to park in a shed at the end of the garden – where there’s an electric car charging point – accessed via a laneway off Cambridge Road behind. There is also residents’ on-street parking at the front.
A few houses on this side of Belgrave Square have come up for sale recently: number 45, which went on the market in July through agent Owen Reilly seeking €2.2 million, is now sale agreed; so too is number 34, which was for sale through Mullery O’Gara seeking €1.95 million.
