A two-storey over garden level house near Bulloch Harbour in Dalkey, Co Dublin, built in the mid-1800s, has handsome period features – most particularly, an unusual domed entrance hall – and a modern bright garden-level kitchen-cum-livingroom. It also has views of the sea from its top rooms at the back of the house across the Bartra Rock apartment development. (The top of the Bartra Martello Tower nearby is visible, a private home that sold in 2016.)

The owners, who moved here 22 years ago, restored the house over the years and there is further potential: new owners could revamp a garage at the side, originally built to house a horse and carriage in the days when the Harbour Road houses were summer homes for Dublin gentry.

Standing at 260sq m (2,800sq ft), the semi-detached house is for sale through Sherry FitzGerald for €1.75 million.

It’s a house that will keep owners fit with more than a dozen steep steps up to the front door, which opens into the hall with its domed Gothic cathedral-style ceiling. On the right are two interconnecting reception rooms with matching marble fireplaces with tiles inset, cornicing and centre roses. Sliding doors in a wide arch connect the drawingroom at the front to the room at the back. A full-size pool table now dominates what was the diningroom.

The main bedroom is on the left of the hall: it has a deep bay window, a wide marble fireplace with a solid fuel stove and an en suite bathroom. In a somewhat unusual layout, the five bedrooms in the house are on three different floors.

Revamped

Steep steps lead down to the bright garden level, completely revamped in 2002. This is the heart of the house: the livingroom/diningroom faces the front, with two glazed doors opening into the front garden. A wide arch opens into the country-style kitchen, with a timber-topped island unit and countertops, cream units and a Belfast sink. French windows open into a sheltered stone-walled courtyard; an archway from here opens into a well-planted garden. The owner, a keen gardener, has vegetable beds, a pond and a small glasshouse on the lawn. A gate from the garden leads into Bartra Rock.

There’s an en suite double bedroom off the ground level hall and a utility room with a Sheila Maid overhead laundry rack. A few steps up at the back of this hall leads into a narrow study with fitted bookshelves.

There are three more bedrooms upstairs. The smart part-tiled family bathroom was revamped five years ago.

There is room to park in the driveway in front of the garage, which opens into the back garden. The front garden has a small patio area next to the house and a long narrow lawn with mature plants.