Ballsbridge €4.75mOne of the earliest houses built on Raglan Road in Ballsbridge comes to the market today with an AMV of €4.75 million prior to auction through Lisney on May 10th.

Number 49, which dates from 1860, has been home for the last 19 years to an architect couple and their family.

They have run their practice from offices at garden level and lived over the elegant 371sq m (4,000sq ft) on the other four levels, including returns.

The light-filled house was built to grand proportions. There's no escaping the wonder of 14ft high ceilings on the hall and first floor levels, nor the sweep of space.

There are four bedrooms, three reception rooms and a further six or seven rooms at ground level.

Laid out with some variations on the usual scheme of things, the kitchen/breakfastroom and a family room are at hall floor level.

The very long sash windows, here as elsewhere in the house, are original and reconditioned; swirls of original plasterwork sit easily with a Rococo-style cast-iron fireplace in the family room.

The flooring in both is Irish oak with mahogany inset. Carrara marble, the kind once favoured by pork butchers and which mellows nicely, has been used for the worktops.

Picture and dado rails, enriched plasterwork arches and fireplaces are everywhere, and they are intact.

The lusty red of drapes on an entrance hallway arch give energy to the restrained architectural elegance.

It leads nicely through to stairs to the first return; these have wood-stained threads and risers painted white.

On the first floor, interconnecting drawing and livingrooms have fine marble fireplaces and lovely views over Clyde Road to the front, lush gardens to the rear. The bedrooms too have high ceilings, even those on the returns. The main, en suite bedroom, which is to the rear, has roof and tree top views.

The garden level office area, in which nine people worked at one point, has a spacious reception and waiting area, tall purpose-built glass doors, a conference or meeting room and various individual offices as well as kitchen and toilet facilities.

The back garden has both a Liscannor slab patio and lush vegetation in a "secret" garden area. There is off-street parking for three cars to the front.