Live the high-life in Tudor revival home with library for €2.9m
When Gerard and Catherine Hamilton bought Patina Hall back in the late 1990s, they knew from the outset that they would knock it down. They had form in that regard. “We were living around the corner on Hainault Road,” says Catherine, “where we’d bought a house, knocked it down and built another. And we were ready to do it again, so we bought Patina for the site.”
The Hamiltons lived in the original house — “a warren of small rooms with a spiral staircase leading to the upstairs” — with their three children for a couple of years while they gathered the courage and the finances to embark on the tear-down, and the building of their new home in 2001.
Their architect was John O’Keeffe and they worked with him to implement their vision of a large, detached Tudor Revival-style house with spacious rooms and high ceilings that would be the perfect backdrop for their growing collection of antique furniture and light fittings.
Located at the Westminster Road end of Mart Lane and set behind electronic gates, Patina Hall is a substantial family home with 425sqm of living space. The handmade Tudor-style front door is fitted with heavy iron door furniture that sets the tone for the rest of the house, with its tall chimneys, pitched roofs and half-timbered beams, while the windows throughout are double-glazed and framed in black hardwood in keeping with the Tudor aesthetic of the house.
There was no stinting when it came the interiors and the finishes include Portland stone floors with underfloor heating in the hall and kitchen, luxury marble and pewter fireplaces by Belle Cheminee, decorative coving and cornicing from Italy and high-quality light fittings, including one beautiful antique stained-glass lantern in the entrance hall that Catherine believes may have come originally from Adare Manor.
The dining room is to the left of the hall and is papered in a rich dark green and features an antique French carved stone fireplace surround. It’s a room that could seat a dozen comfortably; a red wine and late-night stories kind of a room.
The spacious kitchen features a range of hand-painted fitted cabinets with granite worktops. A number of integrated appliances are included and there is an island and a pantry, plus a separate utility room. Double doors open out from the kitchen onto the garden terrace.
Up a few steps from the entrance hall, there is a study and a cosy family television room and an enormous drawing room decorated in a rich burgundy red, complete with grand piano and magnificent fireplace, off which is a library overlooking the garden. This room has functioned as a Leaving Cert study bolthole and also as a tranquil place in which to relax with a good thriller.
Upstairs, there are five bedrooms, four of which are doubles. Three of the bedrooms are en suite and there is a family bathroom with a free-standing roll top bath. The master suite is an exceptionally generous room, with French doors leading out to the balcony and its own large bathroom and dressing room.
Patina Hall is a generous house that looks to have been designed with entertaining in mind and Catherine confirms that ‘back in the day’ there were plenty of parties, many of them outdoor gatherings on the two patios.
“We even had barbecues in the snow,” she says, pointing out the covered section of the patio adjacent to the house.
The 0.55 acre garden is south-facing, nicely private, landscaped and well-maintained, with mature trees, well-established rose beds, and lawn. There’s also a splendid tree house built by Gerard, and detached double garage.
Now, with their family grown — one daughter, Audrey, is an actress based in Los Angeles, while the others have either flown or will soon flee the nest — Gerard and Catherine are ready to downsize.
They would, says Catherine, like to find something smaller, perhaps around Sandycove.
“Not a teardown,” she says, “not a project, but maybe something that needs refurbishment.”