43 William Street, North City Centre, Dublin 1 Asking price: €595,000 Agent: Gallagher Quigley (01 818 3000) Furniture designer Simon O’Driscoll has created the kind of magazine-spread loft space in inner-city Dublin that many of us draw up fantasy plans for, but few of us ever actually execute. Back in 2008, O’Driscoll bought a derelict religious building just off the capital’s Summerhill and set about converting it into his dream home. “I wanted an open-plan space,” he says.
“Or at least one big space with other spaces off it, and I wanted to live in the city centre on the northside. I like to walk and cycle, so I wanted to be somewhere I could do that. I also wanted a space that I could use as a studio.
” The building belonged to the St Vincent De Paul primary school next door, and previously had a religious function among other uses, but it had never been residential. Simon O'Driscoll renovated 34 William Street in Dublin 1 to create a three-bedroom home. Photo: Bryan Meade O’Driscoll has a successful business making high-end furniture for both private and public clients including The Irish Museum of Modern Art and The Cliffs of Moher Centre in Liscannor, Co Clare, as well as The National Concert Hall, The National Gallery and public seating in Dublin’s Smithfield.
You may have sat unawares on one of his sleek timber chairs at some point. An admirer of late 20th-century American designer Charles Eames and Irishwoman Eileen Gray, O’Driscoll designs .
