Ionic Breeze Car

Frescati (sometimes misspelled 'Frascati') was an estate situated in Blackrock, between the mountains and the sea. During the eighteenth century, Blackrock found favour with the well-to-do of Ireland and it grew into a fashionable seaside resort. more...

Home
Amplifiers
Audio Accessories & Cables
Cable TV
DVD Players & Recorders
Digital Video Recorders, PVR
Gadgets & Other Electronics
Air Purifiers
Other Brands
Ozone
Sharper Image Ionic Breeze
Ionic Breeze Car
Ionic Breeze Home
Batteries & Chargers
Breathalyzers
Calculators
Clocks
Dictionaries & Translators
eBooks
Flashlight Key Chains
Fresnel Lenses
Home Automation
Language Filters
Laser Pointers
Laserdisc Players
Metal Detectors
Other Gadgets
Polygraphs
Radiation Detectors
RF Locators
Surveillance
Therapeutic Devices
Timers
Voltage Converters
Weather Devices
WebTV
Home Audio
Home Theater Projectors
Home Theater in a Box
Radios: CB, Ham & Shortwave
Satellite Radio
Satellite TV
Telephones & Pagers
Televisions
VCRs
Vintage Electronics

The gentry of smog-ridden Dublin advanced into the area to embrace the sea-air. It was around this period that many marine villas sprung up around Blackrock – Maretimo, Carysfort, Lios an Uisce, and Sans Souci to name but a few. Frescati House was built in 1739 for the family of Hely Hutchinson, the Provost of Trinity College.

The Duchess

In the 1750’s, Hely-Hutchinson sold the house to the FitzGeralds, Ireland’s largest landowners, who owned land throughout Leinster. Frescati became one of their three principal residences alongside Leinster House and Carton in Co. Kildare. They spent much time in Frescati, especially in the summer. When the Duchess of Leinster, Emily FitzGerald saw Frescati, she is said to have fallen in love with it.

Enlargement and improvement

Unlike Kildare House and Carton, the Fitzgeralds did not commission Frescati House, but their enthusiasm for it was denoted by the fact in the 1760’s, they lavishly extended and enhanced it. They are said to have spent £85,000 (worth many millions of pounds today) on the house. It tripled in size and received flanking wings and bay windows to exploit its panoramic sea views. It was at this time that the house was given its name, Frescati, a deliberate corruption of the Italian resort of Frascati.

Architecture and landscape

Unlike many other great houses, its exterior was austere and not adorned with pediments or pilasters. For some, this gave it a noble simplicity. For others, it seemed unremarkable and undermined the case for preservation. Its exterior contrasted with a richly ornate and well-proportioned interior. The interior was magnificent, with carved marble chimneypieces, many fine ceilings and plasterwork of a high quality. There was a celebrated book room, a classical stone staircase with medallioned walls and a circular room with a groined ceiling. In the long parlour there was a painted ceiling by Riley, a student of Joshua Reynolds. Frescati boasted its own theatre with Corinthian columns. Jacob Smith, who also worked at Carton and Russborough, landscaped and devised the large formal gardens filled with rare plants and shrubs. The house stood well back from the road on acres of woods and parkland, and a stream passed through its grounds. There was also a small seawater pool in the garden. The gateway stood close to where the entrance to the Blackrock Shopping Centre stands today and its lands stretched back to where Sydney Avenue is located today.

Read more at Wikipedia.org