2 Sans Souci Park, Belfast, BT9 5QZ

Two storey Arts and Crafts house designed in 1927 by James P Rush for Miss M.L. Trimble, featuring a butterfly plan with rendered walls and half timbering, and a Rosemary clay tiled roof. The plan is almost symmetrical about the front door, with angled gabled wings having projecting upper storeys supported on timber brackets.

The front elevation faces south-west and has a central Tudoresque hardwood door with fixed lights on either side. The door is set beneath a mono-pitched roof spanning between the two projecting wings, which covers a partially enclosed veranda supported on timber posts. The lower panels of the posts are infilled with herringbone patterned rustic clay bricks. At each side of the veranda are unusual V-shaped windows. Directly above the door is a long strip window to the first floor, with painted bullnose sills.

The left-hand wing facing the entrance gates has a canted bay window on the ground floor and a projecting upper floor supported on brackets at each side. The upper floor has a smaller projecting central window supported on three brackets, with its face lining up with a half timbered gable above. The right-hand wing is similar, though the ground floor canted bay window is narrower. The north-facing side elevation is blind to the front section but towards the centre has a projecting gabled first floor supported at the corners on two timber posts, with two windows beneath and a centrally positioned window above. Beyond this projecting bay towards the rear is a further window and a door on the ground floor with a window over.

The rear elevation of the main part of the house has a two-storey gabled bay to the right-hand side with a small cat-slide roof to its left. Beyond this is a window and a projecting chimney stack built with brown rustic clay brick with projecting upper courses. A similar chimney stack sits on the north elevation. A lean-to garage with Rosemary clay tiled roof is attached to the gabled bay, with a 16-light steel window and a modern steel up-and-over door on the north side. On the left is a sun room with a faceted end now covered with profiled asbestos roofing, possibly added at a slightly later date.

Materials include painted roughcast render with half timbering on the walls, replacement painted double glazed timber top and side opening lights for windows, and uPVC rainwater goods. The site is entered through replacement side hung timber gates designed in a complementary Arts and Crafts style and painted to match the half timbering on the house. A matching pedestrian gate is positioned further along the Sans Souci Park boundary, which is otherwise a tall hedge. The south boundary is also hedged and the north boundary is a timber fence. A substantial grassed area to the front is alongside a modern concrete paved vehicular turning area which extends down the north side to the garage and as a path to the front door. The rear garden is mainly grassed.

The house is located on the corner of Sans Souci Park and Malone Road within the Malone Conservation Area, in a mainly residential area of late Victorian and early twentieth century housing. Sans Souci was laid out in the late 1890s on the grounds of a pre-1832 house of that name, probably built in the 1770s. The old house, rebuilt in 1836-37 and subsequently occupied by the Purdon, Pim and Lindsay families, was vacated around 1895. In 1899 the grounds were broken up and sold off as "beautiful villa sites". The old house was demolished within a year or so, and the whole of its former grounds opened for development. The new principal street was laid out in circa 1899 with most of the new plots arranged to back onto the looping V-shaped course of the boundary of the former garden. The first new dwellings were completed in 1899 or the following year, with further properties built by 1911, and the majority of the remainder, including a large badminton hall to the east, following in the 1920s. Recent years have witnessed apartment development to the southern corner of Sans Souci Park.

The Misses Trimble are named as the occupants in the 1928 street directory, and by 1932 a Miss M.L. Gardner, a masseuse, was living there. Miss Gardner was still in residence in the early 1950s and may be the Mrs M.L. Law, noted as a physiotherapist, who is listed in the directories from at least 1955 until the early 1970s. Frank H. Malpress was in residence by 1975 and was still there in 1995.