Rough diamond on Leeson Street for €1.35m

The Bryson family have had the run of 15 Upper Leeson Street, a fine three-storey over-basement Georgian property in need of complete renovation, for more than a century.

In the rear 25m garden lie the remnants of an old shed, formerly the site of Bryson Aluminium, where Alfred Bryson – the first Bryson to live in the house – set up a pot and pan company after he lost his forearm in a workplace accident. It traded until 2000.

In his daughter Sylvia's memoirs, she recounts how all her life her family told the tale of how Arthur Griffith and Michael Collins had commandeered a room upstairs in the house in 1921. And how during a Black and Tans raid they failed to recognise Eamon De Valera as he sat at the dining table bouncing her – then a tiny baby – on his knee, while Collins and Griffith hid behind the open door. She worked for the British Home Office years later.

After four generations as a family home the 320sq m (3,446sq ft) house was divided into flats, and now requires total renovation.

The property has plenty of potential and there are a couple of options, all of which will require a good conservational architect and planning permission.

Firstly to transform this back into a family home. All the bones of its Georgian heritage are in great condition, and the house was divided using simple partitions, so the original fabric of the building is unsullied. There is an option to block off the basement as a separate (income-generating) one- or two-bed apartment.

There are four run-down apartments in the current layout, but these could be upgraded to very fine apartments by an investor owner. There is precedence for this a couple of doors down.

But possibly its most interesting offering is the substantial rear garden which backs onto Warner’s Lane. There is already precedence for mews dwellings along this lane and prices achieved for four beds in recent sales were more than €900,000. Rental incomes in this area are high – more than €3,500 per month depending on condition and size.

Considering its location – just a five-minute walk to St Stephen’s Green – the property could also make a superb family home.

Whatever fate awaits number 15, be it a family home – with or without a mews – or as an investment property it will require deep pockets. This rough diamond is for sale through Sherry FitzGerald for €1.35 million.