Upper Leeson Street: €2m: The period houses of Dublin 4 are today's trophy homes. Two are on the market this week: Kate McMorrow looks at a restored four-bed on Upper Leeson Street with a thoroughly modern kitchen and a large drawingroom and a Wellington Place house in immaculate condition
You can't get much better than Leeson Street for convenience and elegance. A four-bedroom house on Upper Leeson Street combines period good looks with thoughtfully-arranged accommodation, geared towards easy living and entertaining.
Finnegan Menton is guiding €2 million prior to auction on May 19th for 32 Upper Leeson Street, a restored mellow brick house with 367 sq m (3,950 sq ft) of space. The house was last on the market in 1999 when it sold for £1.4 million (€1.778m) - so the guide is obviously on the conservative side.
The house dates from the late Georgian/early Victorian period, when plasterwork was at its most ornate. Ceilings and door surrounds are quite magnificent and tall sash windows at the front still have original wavy glass panes.
The highly-decorative tiled entrance hall opens to a diningroom, with fine ceiling plasterwork and a white marble fireplace with arched cast-iron inset. Cream-painted cabinets and bookshelves fit into alcoves either side of the mantelpiece.
The diningroom is open to an informal sittingroom, also with coving and a marble fireplace. Glass-panelled double doors and steps lead down to a huge open-plan kitchen/breakfastroom, flooded with light from a glass atrium.
Maple units have steel countertops and splashback and a DCS Dresfa six-burner cooker/oven has a smart steel extractor overhead. A Neff dishwasher and twin sinks are built into an island unit. More natural light comes from a wide bank of windows and French doors to the back garden. A guest toilet is tucked under the staircase.
The best use possible has been made of the basement area, which has a restricted ceiling height. Here, a tiled utility is fitted out as a laundry room. Next door is a child's playroom with bright cartoon-painted walls and tiled floor. Another room is rigged up as a wine cellar.
Upstairs on the first floor return is the main bedroom suite, a light-filled room with a walk-in wardrobe, separate glass-panelled wardrobes and an en suite shower.
The cream-painted formal drawingroom spanning the first floor to the front is large enough to fit a grand piano. Double sash windows provide plenty of light, the cornicing and centre rose are fine and there is an unusual carved cast-iron fireplace. To the rear on this floor is a double bedroom, also with a beautiful ceiling.
On the second return is a luxurious family bathroom with a raised bath surrounded by grey-green tiles, a bidet and beautiful pedestal wash-hand basin.
Two further rooms at the top of the house are used as a child's double bedroom and a nanny's sittingroom. These rooms share a shower room and dressingroom.
There is off-street parking for several cars in the front drive, which is bounded by well-grown shrubs and hedgerows.
Facing south-west, the back garden is sheltered by old ivy-covered stone walls, with a lawn, flagged terrace, and rear access.
