Sunninghill, a five-bedroom semi-detached Gothic style house on Upper Glenageary Road, Co Dublin, is a well-located family home with over 3,000 sq ft of living space and a superb third of an acre garden. One of a pair, the yellow-painted house, which is almost opposite Rathdown Girls' School, has had a complete makeover since it last came on the market in 1996. It sold then for £375,000, but a good deal of money has been spent in the meantime both on the house and the garden.
Sherry FitzGerald expects it to make comfortably over £950,000 when it is auctioned on September 20th. Set back from this busy road, with good off-street parking to the front and side, the four-storey house has the sort of accommodation that is being sought by any number of young upwardly mobile families at the moment.
At hall level there are two fairly grand reception rooms - a large drawingroom to the front and a diningroom with hand-painted walls and a door leading to a butler's pantry. Both rooms have polished pine floorboards.
Downstairs is a huge kitchen and a separate family room leading out the garden, as well as a utility room and study. There are three big airy bedrooms on the first floor with two further rooms in the attic and a second bathroom. Previous owners had added a three storey extension to the house and though this looks a bit boxy, it does add valuable space at each level, such as the butler's pantry at hall level, an en suite bathroom and dressingroom off the main bedroom and, on the ground floor, the office and utility room.
The principal rooms have kept their original features, including fine fireplaces and plasterwork but there are also some quirky details, like unusually shaped windows, the nicest of which is a tall arched window in one of the attic bedrooms. There is lots of cupboard space and guest lavatories on the lower and hall levels.
Sunninghill is immaculately decorated in fashionable provincial French style, with lots of stripped pine and walls painted in cream, pale blue and pale green, Toile de Jouy wallpaper in some of the bedrooms and pretty chandeliers.
The garden sweeps down behind the house with great views over Dun Laoghaire. It is beautifully planted with overflowing herbaceous borders and well kept lawns.
A big detached garage at the end of a long gravel drive that runs alongside the house is a sound, creeper clad structure of around 700 sq ft and could be converted to an office or even a separate house, subject to the necessary planning permission.
