Period homes in Rathmines, Ranelagh and Rathgar are always popular, whether true originals, with pantries and parlours, or modernised with smart extensions, write Property Editor Orna Mulcahy, Bernice Harrisonand Brenda McNally.
Kenilworth Square/€3.5m:Despite the flurry of renovation and refurbishment over the past two decades, period houses do still come on to the market close to original condition.
In a house built in the mid-1800s, as was 48 Kenilworth Square, that usually unearths some interesting and now rarely seen features.
During the second World War, when the current owner's family moved to this fine two-storey over basement house in Rathgar, it was still pretty much in original condition.
Outside, for example, the granite coach-house at the end of the 65m back garden, with its upstairs loft where the stable boy lived, was still intact and inside, brass gas lamps were in every room and the family bathroom featured a massive bath with a mahogany surround.
Sixty six years later and it's still the same because it has been left, as much as possible, as they found it.
For new owners it represents an opportunity to completely renovate a period house in a particularly good location - number 48 enjoys an open aspect facing Kenilworth Square and has a south-facing back garden.
There's also the attraction of the mews potential of the coach house which faces onto an established mews, Garville Lane.
The property - which measures about 265sq m (2,850sq ft) - is for auction through Douglas Newman Good on May 2nd with an AMV of €3.5 million.
The basement is a real throwback to a bygone era.
There's a butler's pantry, a vegetable store, a maid's room, a back parlour and large kitchen with a massive - and still working - cast iron range.
The bathroom, probably installed by a modernising Victorian family, is also down at this level.
Up at hall level there are two fine interconnecting reception rooms, with marble fireplaces, decorative cornices and sash windows. The ceiling in the hall is particularly ornate with some fine plasterwork.
A bathroom is in the return and there is access down to the garden from this level. There are four bedrooms - all good sized doubles with fireplaces.
A new shower room was installed recently on the top floor - in a way that does not to destroy the pleasing proportions of any of the rooms.
Students of interior design history will be interested in the Victorian bamboo dado rail with coconut matting wall covering, the meat hooks in the ceilings in one of the many pantries and the faded old wallpapers in the rooms.
The more development minded will earmark the broken down coach-house for development and the house for top to bottom renovation.
