Dublin 3: A large five-bedroom family home, Avoca, at 137 St Lawrence Road, Clontarf, Dublin 3 is expected to make in excess of €1 million when it is auctioned on February 25th through Sherry FitzGerald. Jack Fagan, Property Editor, reports
The end-of-terrace redbrick is about 100 yards off the Clontarf Road, almost opposite the Presbyterian Church and within 2.5 miles of the city centre.
The present owners, a talented Dublin housebuilder and his wife, have invested heavily in modernising and extending the house, which is in immaculate decorative order.
The front and back gardens have also been upgraded and a new double garage built at the rear not only provides off-street car-parking and handy storage areas but has enhanced the privacy of the garden.
Externally, the house is fairly typical of the solid redbrick homes from the 1890s that help to make St Lawrence's Road one of the most sought-after residential enclaves in Clontarf. There the comparison ends.
Inside, Avoca has been refurbished from top to bottom and anyone viewing the house will quickly realise that the next owners can simply move in and hang up their hats.
The attention to finish and detail during the refurbishment is best exemplified in the interlinking drawingroom and diningroom, two terrific reception rooms.
The identical Italian marble fireplaces in both rooms have been fitted with attractive gas fires; windows have been double glazed; new carpets laid; walls have been insulated and in keeping with the skilful and sympathetic upgrading, a special John Willman wallpaper used to recapture the late Victorian era. The elegant drawingroom has a broad bay window to the front and tall double doors opening into the diningroom.
A new single-storey extension at the rear works particularly well as a family room and kitchen/dining area for the owners, who have three young children.
The living area has an enclosed gas fire and on the opposite side, large windows that catch the sun for much of the day. The kitchen, both practical and stylish, features a granite-topped island unit. There is a guest toilet off the hall. The staircase leads up to five bedrooms (four doubles and one single) and two bathrooms.
The main bedroom is particularly attractive, and has a wall of cherrywood wardrobes and a comfortable en suite. The other bedrooms are also nicely fitted out; to maximise the use of space, open stairs have been installed to the loft and the area fitted out as an office.
Avoca is one of the best presented family homes to come on the market in Clontarf in recent years and is the kind of house which could well produce a dogfight when auctioneer Brian Hennessy puts it under the hammer on February 25th.
Let's just say that I will be extremely surprised if I see someone getting it at just over €1 million. It is worth rather more.
