Buyers considering 3 Leinster Square in the heart of Rathmines should first have a look at the giant collage of photographs in the reception room to the left of the hallway to see how this house has been transformed. It reveals the very sorry state of the two-storey-overbasement double-fronted house when it last changed hands in 1998. It was a mammoth challenge.
But what the then buyer saw when she viewed was the many original features worth saving in every room, in a conveniently-located townhouse. Having sold her house in Ranelagh she was prepared for a top-to-bottom, lengthy renovation.
Now an executor’s sale, number 3 Leinster Square is back on the market, fully and sympathetically renovated and laid out as a two- bedroom house and with 225sq m. Sherry FitzGerald is the agent and the price is €1.25 million. Given their imposing frontage – and the wide hall door with its impressive, restored original fanlight – the surprise in these houses on a short terrace at the entrance to the square is they are just one room deep at hall level.
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So off the hall in number three are two reception rooms with tall sash windows, both front and back. Downstairs, there is a kitchen and a comfortable living room with access out to the front of the house. A conservatory at the rear, and a shower room completes the accommodation downstairs.
Preferring a grand bathroom to a spare room, the third bedroom upstairs at the back of the house was converted into a spacious bathroom and there are two large double bedrooms. These are townhouses – and built as such in the 1840s – so the back garden is a modest patio backing on to busy Leinster Road while the larger front garden has been partially gravelled over to provide off-street parking – an essential in this busy.
Two houses across from number 3 on the road (Leinster Square isn’t actually a square) are for sale but styles on this road differ greatly so they don’t compare. The closest comparison to this one is on the same terrace, number 6 which went on the market in 2014 for €1.3 million. It has a clever two-storey extension at the rear, something that buyers of number 3 might consider.
