While the Church of the Holy Name, or Beechwood Church, was being built – it opened in 1914 – the owners of number 5 Albany Road would have had a bird’s eye view from across the road of the works.
When their house was completed in the late 1890s it was the only one on the soon-to-be- named Albany Road; its neighbours on either side came later.
In many ways, it remains an unusual find for Ranelagh. It is a detached, double-fronted redbrick in an area dominated by terraces and semi-detached houses. It is also on a third of acre, which is a vast garden in Dublin city but particularly around Beechwood and its adjoining roads where gardens tend to be small.
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Also it’s not overlooked either to the front or back; indeed, it has a lovely view right down Beechwood Avenue.
It’s more than 50 years since the five-bedroom house at number 5 Albany Road last came on the market and it is now an executors’s sale through DNG for €1.6 million. At 191.1sq m (2,057sq ft) this is a large family property and while the owners lived very comfortably in the sunny, well laid-out Victorian house, the new owners will almost certainly embark on a major updating progamme throughout, while perhaps also extending at the rear.
Original features
The original layout was very simple: two principal rooms downstairs off a wide hall, five bedrooms and a bathroom upstairs and a warren of rooms – kitchen, scullery, etc – at the rear where there is a two-storey return. Curiously, this also includes a mezzanine level, which is probably where the housemaid originally slept.
The rooms upstairs and downstairs have high ceilings and many original features. The collection of small rooms was knocked through at some stage to make a large kitchen, and a small room was added at the rear opening from one of the reception rooms.
The garden also gives new owners scope to build across the back and rework and maybe extend the two-storey return. Given the size of the south-facing garden – at one point the owners had a full-size tennis court on it – any work done to the house isn’t going to affect it greatly.
There is off-street parking in the front garden and a garage to the side and another one to the rear – again unusual in this area. New owners will probably look at changing the layout of the good-sized front garden to make room for more cars.
