Monkstown: €2.4m: Joyce Hickey visits an old house that has been refurbished by a conservation architect

There's no single style on Alma Road in Monkstown, but one of the most striking houses is a fine Victorian mansion built in the late 1870s by the architect Thomas Drew, whose name is preserved in the name of number 9, Gortnadrew.

A five-bedroom house with 360 sq m (3,270 sq ft) of accommodation, it is scheduled for auction on May 19th through Sherry FitzGerald, which is quoting a guide price of €2.4 million.

Gortnadrew is a wonderful example of how an old house can be brought up to date without compromising any of the original features - rather, the complete and imaginative restoration, carried out by the present owners under the guidance of conservation architect Michael Kavanagh, has emphasised the proportions and maximised the flow of space and light. Far from being a sterile showpiece, the feeling throughout is of a well-loved family home.

The large, mostly gravelled front garden has parking for at least six cars and sandstone steps, complementing the brick frontage, lead up to a porch with original stained glass - into which the date 1875 is worked - and encaustic floor tiles. Once inside, the hall invites you up towards the formal reception rooms and bedrooms, or down a short flight to the open-plan kitchen, informal diningroom and family room that comprise the heart of the home.

The first surprise is the huge amount of light, which pours in through the large windows at each end of the room. Another is the little nook off the diningroom, with two windows of its own, which is a handy place for a desk.

Hand-made kitchen units, by Dún Laoghaire company Fassbinder and English, surround a huge marble-topped island with a sink. While the units look traditional, they are offset by an industrial scale Viking gas stove with double oven and a Sub Zero fridge-freezer, both shipped from the US. This area is floored in reclaimed parquet which amplifies the warmth provided by the underfloor heating.

A lobby off the kitchen and family room gives access to the utility room and toilet, the heating control room - and to the back garden, which is a pleasing mix of formal space and playground.

On the first floor, up the stairs with wrought-iron balusters, two magnificent interconnecting reception rooms have perfectly restored decorative cornices and original pitch-pine floorboards, and are showcases for the views to Howth and to Dún Laoghaire pier. The scale of these rooms is such that a grand piano is dwarfed in the diningroom, off which are a guest toilet and access to steps that lead down to the back garden. Also on this level is a guest bedroom, with a secondary room off it.

Upstairs, a generous half-landing is a perfect reading room and further up, on the second floor, are three bedrooms, including the main bedroom with its large en suite shower room and more glorious views. The family bathroom is up a few steps and has three stained glass windows and a semi-sunken bath as well as a roomy shower cubicle.

A mahogany-spindled staircase leads up to a fifth large bedroom with sloping ceilings and Velux windows, and a smaller room off it which could be made into an en suite for a guest.

With sea views from almost every window, the warm neutral palette and modern comforts, as well as the location - two minutes' walk from Seapoint DART station - make Gortnadrew a most welcoming and quirky family home.