Buyers with long memories will remember the old Inis Ealga. The modest low-slung bungalow on Dartry Road stood on a small strip of a site – the side garden to an adjacent older house.

When it came up for auction in April 2001 it didn’t sell on the day and it was put back on the market by private treaty for €730,000. The Dutch owner of the new Inis Ealga says he didn’t set set foot in the old bungalow before he bought it – it was the site he and his Irish-born wife were interested in.

The owners, who spend most of their time out of Ireland, were mostly looking for a home base for their children’s college years and they had a clear vision of the house they wanted, designing it themselves and bringing in an architect to draw up plans and secure planning permission.

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What they clearly wanted was a very large house – the two-storey redbrick Inis Ealga has a floor area of 5,000sq ft (471sq m) on a 0.25 acre site. In its present layout it has four bedrooms, which gives an idea of how large the rooms, including the bedrooms and ensuites, are.

Grand entrance hall

The layout of the double-fronted house is straightforward. There’s a grand entrance hall (they brought over the antique hall door from their canal house in Amsterdam) with a custom-built American white oak staircase that goes up to the top of the house where at dormer level there are two bedrooms and a shared bathroom.

The main reception room is to the left off the hall, stretching from front to rear with windows to the side. On the other side of the hall is a large family room while the open-plan kitchen and dining area is to the rear. There’s a little bit of rethinking to be done here as the cherry-red Aga is in the dining area, a distance from the rest of the kitchen.

A glazed sunroom runs the width of the back of the house with the kitchen and the living room opening into it.

Upstairs, off the roomy landing with its square bay window, is the main bedroom with a vast ensuite and walk-in wardrobe, another double bedroom with an en suite, and a TV room. New owners might well use this TV room as a fifth bedroom and convert the small adjoining home office into an ensuite.

The owners brought in Porcelanosa tiles from Spain and most floors throughout the house are finished with them. They’re bright and easy to maintain – ideal for when the house was a corporate let for the past number of years, although new owners might want to put down something warmer.

There’s a double garage to the side – a rare thing in Dublin 6 – as well as parking for two more cars. Everything in Inis Ealga looks to be done to the highest standard, with attractive features such as the French limestone fireplaces, and inside it’s a bright, modern home.

Compromise

But for buyers looking at Dublin houses in the region of €3 million – where there is a good deal of choice – and when considering Inis Ealga, a very large house on a relatively narrow site, the gardens will be the compromise.

To the front, the house is not set back far from the busy road, and along the rear there is a strip of narrow patio that connects the two gardens on either side of the house, one of which is overlooked by the windows in the gable wall of a neighbouring house.

Inis Ealga is for sale through Ganly Walters for €2,975,000.