A large Victorian semi-detached house on the sunny side of Park Avenue, in Sandymount, Dublin 4, is likely to attract strong interest in the run-up to being auctioned by Sherry FitzGerald on June 30th.
Number 57 Park Avenue is a spacious six-bedroom house with a 140 ft long garden backing on to the grounds of Pembroke Cricket Club. Selling agent Simon Ensor expects it to fetch in excess of £1 million. Extended and refurbished by the present owners, this is a fine family house with just under 3,000 sq. ft of living space and accommodation on three levels, including an attic floor that will appeal to teenagers.
The internal layout is slightly unusual with the entrance at the side of the house. This opens into a wide hallway with the drawing room off to the left. This is a gracious room with a wide bay window overlooking the front garden, and a period fireplace. However, most of the living goes on at the other side of the hall where there is a family room opening into the kitchen and breakfast room. The kitchen is part of a clever two-storey extension built several years ago and virtually indistinguishable from the main house. It has a full range of oak units and a wide picture window as well as sliding doors to the back garden. An arch leads to the breakfast room, which has an open fireplace and room for a sizeable dining table. New owners may consider incorporating this room into the kitchen to create a more modern kitchen-cum-living room.
The first floor has a large landing with two bedrooms and a bathroom leading off it. Both are spacious doubles, with the main bedroom overlooking the front garden through two tall sash windows. Both rooms share a large airy bathroom. Also off the landing is a long corridor leading to one of the nicest rooms - a 22 ft long living room with windows across the back of the house. This sunny, yellow room has a period cast-iron fireplace at one end, and, at the other, a bar area and a spiral staircase leading up to a roof terrace. On the top floor, there are four more bedrooms, one of them currently used as a study. Again, these rooms lead off a spacious landing, and they share a sizeable bathroom. There is some scope here to reorganise the layout and new owners may knock two of the smaller adjoining bedrooms together to make one large room.
Perhaps the best feature of all is the back garden, which faces south-west and gets the sun for most of the day and evening.
The fact that the garden backs on to playing fields that are unlikely to be developed at any time in the future adds considerably to the value of this very attractive home.
