Trading UpAn Ailesbury Road redbrick for €8.5m will be a trophy buy, says Eoin Lyons. Below, Anne Dempseyon two penthouse apartments
A Victorian redbrick on Ailesbury Road in Ballsbridge will provide a useful indicator to the state of the market in Dublin 4 when it goes to auction on March 7th.
Being terraced, number 33, is a slightly smaller property than many of its neighbours, but the two-storey over basement house is still a fine home, lived in by the same family for decades. The five-bedroom house it has 352sq m (3,780sq ft) of space and a sunny back garden.
Lisney has set an AMV of €8.5 million prior to auction.
Apart from the weighty address, it's easy to see the appeal - superb plasterwork, 15ft high ceilings, broad reception rooms and a 35m-long garden. There's an ambience of security and solidity about the house. The middle floor has the usual configuration of interconnecting drawing and diningroom. A study with doors to a small terrace is on the garden level return.
All the rooms to the rear face southwest and have views towards the Dublin mountains.
While very well maintained, the house - being sold by an owner with grown-up children - has a well-lived in feel, with some decoration just a little dated.
It has a second entrance at garden level, beneath granite steps, which opens to a hall off which is a livingroom, a large kitchen and a few smaller rooms beyond it. The current owner says this has been a wonderfully practical family space.
Upstairs, there is a double bedroom on the first return and three further large bedrooms on the first floor. There is just one full bathroom in the house, a few steps up from the first-floor landing, with a fifth bedroom next to it. New owners will need to come up with imaginative plans if they want further bathrooms.
There is off street parking at the front of the house. Beautiful old trees border the long garden which has mews potential with access from Ailesbury Wood.
Trading Down
Apartments in Merrion Village in Ballsbridge, Dublin 4, come on the market relatively rarely. So the joint sale of two adjoining penthouses offers an opportunity for someone to join them up and make a very large rooftop home with 279sq m (3,000sq ft) of living space and 42sq m (450sq ft) of terraces Numbers 128 and 129 Merrion Village are for sale by private treaty through Douglas Newman Good with an asking price of €3 million.
Built in the 1980s, Merrion Village, with its mature landscaped gardens, has mellowed well. The two homes for sale are spread over half of the entire fifth floor and have their own private lift. Turning the two into one - and converting a kitchen into a bedroom - would create a home with four reception rooms, including a large drawingroom, plentiful terraces, a kitchen, three bedrooms, and two bathrooms.
Alternatively, each apartment could be let separately, or used as home and income.
The key-coded lift opens on to a mirrored hallway shared by both apartments. Number 128, with 111sq m (1,200sq ft) of space, has a drawingroom with a timber floor opening onto a southwest facing sundeck with mountain views. Its diningroom has a concealed built-in bar. The kitchen has been recently modernised with beechwood floors and matching fittings, topped by black granite worktops. Patio doors off the kitchen open onto a smaller south-facing verandah with views over Merrion Strand. The double bedroom is bright; the en suite mirrored bathroom has walls and floor in striking marble, with glass brick windows.
Carpeted extensively in pale grey wool, number 129 has 158sq m (1,700sq ft) of space. A large drawingroom is decorated and furnished in shades of grey. The two reception rooms are separated from each other by sliding internal glazed doors. The diningroom has a large picture window giving sea views, while patio doors open from the drawingroom to a sunroom with side terraces off. The whole effect is of splendid, light-filled space.
The bedroom has patio doors opening to a balcony. Each apartment in Merrion Village has two designated parking spaces.
