Kilmacanogue/€2 million: An 1820s home on 6.5 acres in Co Wicklow has been extended to create a comfortable modern home. Rose Doyle reports

Kilmurry Grove, at Kilmacanogue, Co Wicklow, which is for sale with a guide price of €2 million, is an extended, almost 200-year-old house on six-and-a-half acres in a rich landscape of beech and oak trees, a botanical array of flowers, a small pond, man-made lake and stream running through it all. It faces the Sugar Loaf mountain.

The house, at the end of a winding, tree-lined avenue, has five reception rooms and four bedrooms over a bright 325 sq m (3,500 sq ft)floor area. It is being sold at auction through agent Douglas Newman Good on May 5th.

Dating from 1835, Kilmurry Grove has many of its original windows, internal doors and fireplaces. Additions over the years, which include a large, double drawingroom, sun/family room and a rear utility area, are in line with the house's style and size.

The original entrance lobby, removed at some point, has been rebuilt to give a bright fanlit aspect to the entrance hallway. In the John Daly-designed kitchen, which is less than a year old and opens into the sunroom, there are period-style additions such as herb drawers and a dresser unit.

The double drawingroom, an extension added some 50 years ago, has 11 ft high ceilings and three deep-silled windows to the front which give views of the Sugar Loaf. The period fireplace is white marble with gold detail.

Front-facing dining and sittingrooms to either side of the entrance hallway also have deeply inset windows as well as marble fireplaces, both of them original to the house.

The recent addition of the large sunroom has opened up and considerably enlarged the rear of Kilmurry Grove. Italian marble flooring extending from the kitchen gives an expansive unity to the area which is filled with light from a double-vaulted glass ceiling and a wall of windows overlooking a warm, terracotta-toned patio.

In the extensively equipped kitchen, creamy walls and units blend with polished granite worktops and a centre aisle in dappled coral colours. A small study, which may have been an original pantry, has a cast-iron fireplace, polished timber floor, shelving and presses.

The utility area has a black-and-white tiled floor and leads to a toilet with wash- hand basin and linen storage room.

The main and guest bedrooms off the first floor landing are en suite, both of them facing the front of the house. The other two bedrooms are on the return, both with attic-style ceilings. In the large family bathroom, also on the return, steps from the marble floor lead to a deep corner bath. It has a small cast-iron fireplace and towel cupboard.

Outside, after rounding the hard-surface tennis court, you come to the man-made lake with its two lushly-vegetated small islands, its breeding moorhens and water lilies. About 15 years old, there is roughly an acre under water.

Quirkily charming is the restored stone monks' fishing house from where water levels can be controlled. To the rear of the house there is an enclosed patio. A small building close to the side of the forecourt has a tongue-and-groove ceiling and timber floor and used as a gym.

Behind this there are potting sheds large enough to be converted for other uses. Kilmurry Grove originally stood on more than 15 acres of land, but over half of these have been sold off over time so that now the house stands on six-and-a-half acres. Nearby homes built in recent years for members of the vendor's family are behind a screen of trees while stables converted into privately-owned apartments are behind a granite wall and not included in the sale. Kilmurray Grove faces the old, pre-motorway Dublin road and Sugar Loaf mountain. Granite walls enclose the eastern and southern sides of the property, which back onto the new motorway.