“I remember the feeling of airy calm I got the first day I stepped in the hall of number 10, when we were house-hunting back in spring 1998. We had looked at many houses, and I knew this one was it as soon I stepped inside,” says the architect and homeowner at 10 Belmont Avenue in Donnybrook.
Dating from the 1890s, the four-bedroom Victorian house located in the heart of Donnybrook has changed with the family’s needs over the past 24 years.
Two interconnecting reception rooms with original working fireplaces lie to the front of the house with steps down to a Michael Farrell kitchen. Here the central island is on wheels: “I designed the kitchen and decided to make the island unit mobile so we could move it over to the side and clear the floor for céilí dancing. The kitchen is a long space, so it was perfect for the Walls of Limerick,” says the owner.
There are many instruments about the house as the family are keen musicians, and have held many soirees over the years — an elevated spot in the rear garden was built as a stage.
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“We held a birthday party for my mother, many years ago now, when the house was full of young 70- and 80-year-olds sitting in a circle around the piano, singing.”
Extending to 162 sq m (1,745 sq ft), the property has three good-sized double bedrooms, and the principal occupies the entire width of the house. Some neighbours have divided this room to give two bedrooms, but it would be a shame to do so as it is such a lovely space.
A bedroom on the return has its own loft area, accessed by a ship’s ladder, while the third bedroom has an original cast-iron fireplace and gets morning sunshine.
When the owners first arrived to their home, they found a little toy owl on top of the curtain pole: “We bought the house from John Masterson, who produced The Late Late Show, and the owl originally came from the set.”
While renovating the rear garden into what it is now — a space for entertaining with a large dining area and elevated area to the rear — the family discovered a clay pipe. They think it was owned by Brian O’Nolan, the writer known as Flann O’Brien or, when he wrote his Cruiskeen Lawn column for The Irish Times, as Myles na gCopaleen. He lived here during the 1960s and is said to have written The Hard Life at number 10. “About 15 years ago a man called to the house as he was writing a book on all the places that Flann lived, and he sent us a copy.”
The location where O’Brien’s book The Hard Life: An Exegesis of Squalor was written is far from the despair and decay it relates and is the antithesis of the fun and parties the current family have had in the home.
With the RDS, Herbert Park and a plethora of schools and amenities on the doorstep, there is little need for a car. But should new owners need a vehicle there is ample on-street parking with two designated electric car charging stations nearby. The street has recently become one-way from Donnybrook to Sandford Road in Ranelagh so is no longer used as a rat run for car-commuters.
The owner will miss her home, which is full of happy memories, and her favourite space is an old cast iron fireplace in the kitchen: “On a chilly autumn or winter morning I light a fire, put down a couple of logs and cook a slow family breakfast and just hang.”
Number 10 Belmont Avenue, which has a Ber of D1, is on the market through DNG seeking €1.195 million.
