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L ockdown across Europe was the catalyst that convinced Alma Capt it was time to move home

Alma Capt and her dog Lou Lou

The kitchen and island unit

The living room of Juniper

The rear of the property

Juniper, 18 Bailey Green Road, Howth, Co Dublin

Asking price: €1.5m Agent: Sherry FitzGerald (01) 839 4022

Covid-19 lockdown was responsible for an unusual number of home moves as people reevaluated their lives and sought to relocate back to their roots and family.

And it was lockdown across Europe that persuaded Dubliner Alma Capt to come home again after more than 30 years based abroad.

Finding the right house for a long lockdown stint for her family was a priority for Alma.

Capt relocated to Ireland from Switzerland with her three children and her dog at the start of the pandemic. However, she wasn’t looking forward to having to furnish an entire house.

As luck would have it, she quickly came across Juniper, a four-bedroom, two-storey detached house on the road to Howth Head. The 2,368 sq ft Alsatian-style home was in showhouse condition, and furnished to boot.

“Everything about the house appealed to me. It was just perfect. I couldn’t fault it,” says Alma, who took her 21-year-old daughter Alexia to accompany her on the viewing.

Alma Capt and her dog Lou Lou

Alexia now lives in London where she works as a fashion designer and DJ. She has DJ-ed for New York and London Fashion Weeks and the Cannes Film Festival. “She’s just one of these people who can turn her hand to a variety of things. She’s very creative and has great taste,” says Alma.

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“We walked around the house, inspecting the rooms and we both loved it immediately.”

Originally from Donaghmede, Alma had left Ireland at the age of 20 and lived abroad for over 30 years, spending time in Spain and San Diego before settling in Geneva. There, she married and had three children: Jérémy (25), Alexia (21) and 16-year-old Charlotte.

The kitchen and island unit

But when Covid-19 came and countries began to lock down, she decided to return back to her roots and was pleasantly surprised by some of the aspects of Irish society that she missed.

“I had some lovely years in Switzerland, but I was very happy to come back to Ireland. Life is very different here and much better in many ways.”

“If you sit down in a pub here, people come up and talk to you. That would never happen in Geneva. If you started talking to a stranger in Switzerland, people would look at you like there was something wrong with you. That’s one of the great things about Irish culture.”

The living room of Juniper

The home’s views and comfort helped her and the children settle in Ireland. The front of the house is accessed via electric gates and opens to a gravel driveway.

On entering the hallway, which has polished wooden oak floors, a door to the left leads to the sitting room at the front of the dwelling. This room has beige and cream décor with long comfortable couches, an open fireplace and a marble mantelpiece.

There’s a large bay window letting in the light and Alma rarely closes the curtains.

“I sometimes see tourists or horse riders strolling by on their way to climb Howth Head, which I quite like.”

The walls had been painted in various shades of white and cream with subtle hints of grey and green, each tone reflecting the light in a particular room and creating a flow from one room to another. The house has hand-crafted joinery throughout with a solid wood staircase and stylish wall panelling in the hall and the bathrooms.

Also off the hall of the house is a boot room for storage and a good-sized downstairs bathroom. It opens to an open-plan kitchen/dining room at the back of the house. Here the hand-painted sage green kitchen units and hob are in pristine condition.

The worktops are made from Silestone. There’s an island with a white marble top and a number of high stools and chairs. This, Alma had extended to accommodate more seats.

Paintings by Alexia are dotted around the house and can be found in the dining room, providing modern pops of colour in an otherwise traditional setting.

The round wooden kitchen table and chairs came with the house, as did much of the furniture, including the beds upstairs in the four bedrooms. Two of these are ensuite with walk-in wardrobes. “It would have been difficult to buy all the furniture and have it delivered during lockdown. The shops were closed and there were no delivery trucks available,” says Alma. “They even had the bedding and the pillows on them when we moved in.”

The rear of the property

There’s a family room off the dining room which could be used as an office. Double glass doors open to a patio outside leading to the garden. It had been landscaped with borders of bedded plants and a lawn made of AstroTurf which Alma didn’t take to at first.

“I hated it,” she says. “I thought, what are we doing with fake grass? In Switzerland we had a huge garden with a tractor to cut the grass. But I’ve come to love the AstroTurf now as it doesn’t need to be cut, which means it’s very easy to look after.”

There was a patio with porcelain paving tiles already in the back garden and a number of mature trees in pots. Alma added some garden furniture. “We get sun in the back garden in the summer and all day at the front of the house and I often sit out there and drink my coffee.”

Part of Juniper’s appeal is its setting on Bailey Green Road which has a rural feel to it but is just a short walk to Howth Village.

“Howth really is very special, and a lot of people don’t realise it.” The back of the house faces towards Howth Bay, while it fronts towards Howth Head and, on a clear day, you can see the Dublin Mountains from the second floor. Alma loves to walk her dog Lou Lou and to run in the surrounding area. While she and her children have been very happy living in Juniper, Alma feels it’s the right time to sell and is looking for another house in the same locality. Having moved 17 times throughout her life, she’s no stranger to change.

“I’ve never been one of those people who wanted a forever home, so I don’t mind moving again.”

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