The address of this house in Sandycove suits the couple who bought it nearly 30 years ago. They were happy living in Templeogue when they discovered the house with a nautical name one day collecting their daughter from sailing in Dún Laoghaire. So they bought the house called Mariners on Neptune Terrace which – their family grown – they are now selling. Keen sailors themselves, they plan to stay in the area after downsizing.
Mariners, 1 Neptune Terrace, Breffni Road, Sandycove, Co Dublin, a well-maintained 224 sq m (2,411 sq ft) two-storey four-bed a short walk from the Forty Foot is now for sale through Sherry FitzGerald for €2.25 million. Built around 1860, it’s a double-fronted two-storey house with attractive period details.
Although as a protected structure it doesn’t need a Ber rating, it’s well insulated with triple-glazed windows and underfloor heating in a number of rooms and an A-rated condensing boiler. All the windows – apart from the two downstairs bays at the front – have been replaced with double-glazed timber sash windows and triple-glazed windows in the revamped family bathroom and downstairs family room.
Original period details include cornicing and centre roses in the front hall and two main reception rooms – but the handsome double front doors with tall stained glass panels were internal doors from Loreto Abbey in Rathfarnham, installed by previous owners. Those owners had also begun renovating the house doing basic structural work on the heating, plumbing and electrics, say the current owners. Since buying it, they have continued renovations, principally adding a family room at the back of the house and a large upstairs bathroom.
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Mariners has a simple layout, with two reception rooms at the front of the house, both with tall, deep bay windows and white marble fireplaces. The room on the right, the drawingroom, has original floorboards and an elegant arch opening into a study, which has glazed double doors into the back garden.
The reception room on the left is the diningroom, opening through an arch into the kitchen and from here directly into the family room; it’s designed to give a view of the back garden from the front of the house. The original floor was replaced with a solid hickory floor that runs from the diningroom through the kitchen and into the family room.
The kitchen is long rather than wide, with cream units, a small island in the centre, topped like the countertops with polished black granite and a green Aga. The owners had originally thought of getting rid of it – and are very grateful they didn’t. “You can cook at any time, dry clothes,” they say, adding that overall, theirs is a very dry house. There’s a utility room at the end of the front hall with a door into the side of the garden and a small toilet off it.
The family room is bright, with a roof light over it and two sets of double floor-to-ceiling glazed doors opening into the garden.
Upstairs, the remodelled family bathroom is on the first return. It’s a large, bright room with a claw foot bath, shower and a Villeroy and Boch vintage wash-hand basin. All the bedrooms are doubles: the main bedroom at the front has built-in wardrobes and an en suite shower with, like the family bathroom, underfloor heating.
The 23m-long back garden is neatly landscaped, with lots of plants and shrubs, a deck, patios and gravelled areas, a small lawn and paths down to a double parking space at the bottom of the garden. The parking area is accessed off a laneway off Sandycove Avenue East, just around the corner from the Forty Foot. There’s no off-street parking in the front but potential to create it, subject to planning permission. (Off-street spaces have been permitted in neighbouring Munster Terrace.)
Mariners is on the busy Breffni Road, the part of the main Dún Laoghaire to Dalkey road between Sandycove Avenue East and the bottom of Castlepark Road.
