Pam Conway wasn’t paying too much attention when she bent down to pick up a sheet of paper that dropped onto her hall mat, 20 years ago but the contents would prove life-changing for the interior designer. On it was a handwritten note by a disappointed under-bidder on a house across the road.
At that time Conway was living in a courtyard development off Brewery Road, in Stillorgan in Dublin. She had been considering selling her small terraced house for something bigger with a home office, so she called the writer of the note. As they got talking, Conway discussed what she was looking for in a home — a three-storey period house — and the woman said it was exactly like her own house, at No 8 Proby Square, in Blackrock.
Conway and her husband, Kevin Fitzpatrick, an accountant in the pub and hospitality trade, took a trip out to see the house.
Proby Square was built in about 1840 by Robert Graves, believed to have been a doctor, who held the lease on the land. The three- storey-over-garden house sits in a terrace of six tall houses, with a railed garden to the front and granite steps rising to the front door.
“It had tumbling roses in the garden, which was exactly the picture I had in my head. It was as if I had taken a picture of it. We offered to buy it there and then,” says Conway.
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However, the auction date had already been set, so they would have to battle it out with other bidders before they secured it, which they did. They bought the house in October 1996 but the woman who sold it to them never did buy the Stillorgan house.
No 8 Proby Square had been partially converted from bedsits, but more work was needed to turn it into a family home.
The floor area extends to 282 sq metres, and opens into a long entrance hall with wide floorboards. There’s a living room/fourth bedroom at this level, with original coving, ceiling rose, cast-iron fireplace and working shutters. The floorboards are original and have been thermally and acoustically proofed.
To the back of the house, the kitchen is fitted with bespoke turquoise units. There’s a utility room at this level and up on the return is a bathroom. The second floor is given over to a dining room and drawing room, and there are three bedrooms on the third floor, with an en suite bathroom to the master bedroom.
Conway was keen to retain period detail when converting the property back. “The dining room was a challenge because it had been subdivided into little rooms, but all the coving had been preserved,” she says.
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“I’m a purist. I kept everything. When we put in the new kitchen, we took out the chimney breast, but I carefully wrapped the old fireplace and kept it.”
After the heavy work had been done, Conway enlisted the help of an artist friend, Mary Gorman, to create something special for Fitzpatrick’s birthday — a trompe l’oeil. “I gave her a set of keys and six months to do it, so she would have it ready for a big Christmas unveiling,” she says.
“I knew what I wanted: an eccentric contessa whose roof had fallen in so she could see the stars and the sky, with a little menagerie of animals running around.”
The artist painted the ceiling sky, and Conway had 250 fibre-optic lights installed. Other hand-painted murals — inspired by an exhibition of Russian icons that Conway had seen in London — are in the hall. The dining room mural was kept hidden from her husband until the Christmas reveal . “It was very ceremonial. I opened the door and he was kind of blown away.
“It’s a real dinner-party room. We place candles everywhere, and it’s lit very softly. Our guests don’t like to leave it,” she says.
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For Conway, the mural gave her an opportunity to express herself. “Everyone should be able to do that at least once in their lives.”
The dining room may be her favourite room, but the adjoining drawing room comes a close second. Here, hand-blocked green wallpaper sets off the cornicing. Two large period windows allow light to flood the space.
After two decades at No 8, the couple are selling up to move to something smaller. Their home came on the market in November, but has just been reduced from €1.425m to €1.295m. “We would have gone smaller years ago, but the economic situation didn’t allow us to be extravagant and sell a house for very little,” says Conway.
The trompe l’oeil may be embraced by future owners, but Conway, who has designed everything from ambassador’s residences to under-stairs lavatories through her firm Pam Conway Interiors, is practical.
“Being a designer I know what sells and I know it makes it more difficult to sell with something as exotic as that. Everybody wants magnolia walls and a blank canvas,” she says.
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“I did buy some suedette fabric a couple of years ago and dressed the mural at the centre. It’s a way of covering it up if you don’t want it now, but would like it later. It took me a couple of days to put it up, but I took it down because I wanted the mural back.”
The ground floor at No 8 was an apartment when Conway moved in but the couple received planning permission to turn it into offices. It includes a reception area, two offices, a small kitchen and bathroom. New owners could look to revert it to an apartment or bring it into the family home.
The house has planning permission to knock down a three-storey return and a single- storey shed and build a 54 sq metre, three storey-extension to the back. The house next door has a similar extension, which was designed by Conway.
The couple won’t be moving far. Conway is embedded in the Blackrock community — she sings in a local gospel choir and does dance classes around the corner.
Ultimately, her wish is to portion off a part of the site at the back of No 8 Proby Square to build a mews. The property has a 19-metre-long back garden, and is one of two houses on the strip with rear access. Conway says she would build a neat extension, not visible from the lower three floors of the house. The recent price reduction has been made with this in mind.
