A lot of Georgian house for your money in Dublin 2

A townhouse with seven bedrooms and views of Leinster House is for sale at €1.95m

A four-storey Georgian town house on Lower Fitzwilliam Street, between Merrion Sq and Baggot Street, has come on the market through Knight Frank asking €1.95 million.

The seven-bedroom house is being sold by sculptor Patrick O’Reilly and his wife, lawyer Gerardine Connolly, who divide their time between Dublin and rural France.

Viewers familiar with his work will spot his sculptures dotted around the vast rooms, giving the townhouse a bohemian feel.

Buying a Georgian building is not for the faint-hearted although as this one comes with instant income potential interested buyers will be at the calculators figuring out how to make it work.

The four-storey over basement house has two self-contained one-bedroom apartments in the basement, each with its own hall door; the hall floor was until recently a legal office while the rest of the house, with its seven bedrooms and grand drawingroom makes a stunning city centre home.

The four car-parking spaces at the back if the house are also potential income earners given the office-filled location.

O’Reilly and his wife bought the house around 10 years ago when it was in flats and around five years ago reconfigured the layout of the 494sq m (5,317sq ft) property to suit their needs. It is smartly decorated, modern where it needs to be (in the kitchen and bathrooms) while retaining many restored period details and it feels unworn as the owners mostly live abroad.

At hall level there are two interconnecting rooms and a small cloakroom – it’s this floor that has office usage.

On upstairs to the first floor where the livingroom is to the front, It is huge as from this level up the house has extra width as it was built over the laneway.

This gracious room has a beautiful, intricate plastered ceiling by the 18th century stuccodore Michael Stapleton who decorated the chapel and Trinity College and the also the ceilings at Belvedere College. This room has three tall sash windows and a French stone fireplace.

That’s to the front. To the back is the eat-in kitchen, super modern and industrial-looking in stainless steel, a perfect contrast to the classical surroundings.

Also on this level is the first of the seven bedrooms plus an ensuite.

The rest of the bedrooms are on the next two floors and have either en suites or adjacent bathrooms. As seven bedrooms seems rather a lot for a family – and couples with large families probably wouldn’t be interested in the house as there is no outdoor space other than the parking spaces – it will be interesting to see who does buy this well located property.

The views from number 4 are not as charming as the house. Out the front windows is the spectacularly ugly ESB offices - while to the rear is a tall multi-storey carpark.

However, some of the bedrooms on the upper floors look directly down the lane and have glimpses of Government buildings.

There’s no doubt, though, that this is in the heart of Georgian Dublin.