Dalkey: €5mA hidden home with development potential on Dalkey's Nerano Road will be trophy buy. Property Editor Orna Mulcahy reports

Galway-based auctioneer Helen Cassidy makes her Dublin debut with one of the finest properties to come on the market in Dalkey, Co Dublin.

Sorrento, on Nerano Road, is an intriguing six-bedroom house hidden from the road standing on three-quarters of an acre of grounds overlooking Coliemore Harbour.

The 19th century house has been in the same family since the 1960s and is now on the market, with a tender date set for October 28th.

The guide price of €5 million puts it well within reach of many buyers seeking trophy homes, as well as builders looking at the development potential of the mainly level site.

Located a few minutes' walk from Dalkey village, Sorrento is set at the end of a long gravel driveway that curves around to reveal the house with its wide V-shaped front clad in virginia creeper. To the left is a wide area of lawn that was once a tennis court. Beyond this is a superb Victorian greenhouse where the owners grow everything from peppers to strawberries.

Behind the house is a large area of garden that slopes down to an orchard with extensive road frontage and access onto Green Road.

The house has a floor area of over 446sq m (4,800sq ft) with two fine reception rooms leading off a big light-filled hallway where French doors open onto the garden. The drawingroom and diningroom face the sea, and there are two further rooms which connect to a rear passageway leading to the big airy kitchen with an Aga cooker.

An interesting curved staircase leads to the upper floor where the principal bedrooms face the sea. Sorrento was probably designed as a summer villa for a wealthy Dublin family. It doesn't have grand cornicework or fireplaces but it does have an abundance of light-filled living space.