One of the prerequisites of countries looking for a residence for their ambassadors is a dining table that can seat 22 people, says Sherry FitzGerald agent Simon Ensor. That was no trouble for the Hungarian ambassador to Ireland when he lived at 32 Leeson Park in Ranelagh, Dublin 6: the interconnecting drawingroom and diningroom alone of this very large Victorian house are 46sq m (500sq ft).
Number 32, one of six Victorian houses built in the 1850s between Northbrook Road and Dartmouth Road in Ranelagh, is 520sq m (5,600sq ft), which is its original footprint. When a property investor bought it in 2007, he had it completely refurbished at a cost of €2 million, but had no need to extend. It has been rented for the past 17 years, mainly as the Hungarian embassy’s residence, and the semidetached, two-storey-over-garden-level five-bed redbrick is now for sale through Sherry FitzGerald seeking €5.25 million.
The house, staged for sale by Project Interiors, has plenty of the original period features – ornate ceiling cornicing, centre roses, marble fireplaces, deep bay windows, original wooden floors – of houses of this period. Refurbished in 2008 by Coady Architects and Merrion Contracting, it’s also a modern home with smart bathrooms (four of the bedrooms have en suites), recessed lighting everywhere, a sleek kitchen/breakfast room and underfloor heating at garden level. Nearly 20 years after the revamp, it still looks pretty contemporary. Everything was done in the revamp, with new heating, plumbing and lighting installed – however, as a protected structure, it’s Ber-exempt.
Steep granite steps lead up to the arched front entrance of number 32. The front door – with striking stained-glass windows – opens into a large squarish front hall with very ornate plasterwork. The interconnecting reception rooms are on the left: the nearly floor-to-ceiling bay window in the drawingroom looks across Leeson Park to the Gothic-style stone church, Christ Church Leeson Park, opposite. The drawingroom has elaborate ceiling cornicing, a white-marble coal-effect gas fireplace with slate inset and very large double doors opening into the diningroom.
The table in that room at the moment seats a modest eight for dinner but the room is indeed large enough to accommodate an ambassador’s dinner party. There’s another tall bay window overlooking the back garden here, more elaborate plasterwork and a brown marble fireplace. Conveniently, there’s a small butler’s pantry, with a sink, fridge and storage units on the right of the front hall. Next to that is a very large study with a tall, wide window overlooking the back.
Stairs at the end of the front hall lead down to a return with a seating area and a door opening on to steps that lead down to the garden. Stairs inside lead down to a hall floored with glossy white tiles. At the bottom of the stairs on the right is a large wine cellar with a temperature-controlled fridge and, next to it, a livingroom with a bay window at the front of the house.
In the kitchen, a long reddish-brown island unit contrasts in colour with the glossy pale kitchen units and countertop. Double glass doors open from a good-sized breakfastroom on to the back patio. There’s a good-sized utility room off the kitchen.
On the opposite side of the hall is a large double bedroom that opens on to the patio outside: it has a smart en suite with a timber-panelled counter and a step-in shower.
The four other bedrooms off a large landing on the first floor are all doubles, three of them en suite. The main bedroom is very large, the same size as the drawingroom below it and the garden-level livingroom; it has a view through trees to the church opposite. The bedroom needs a lot of furniture to fill it, and the stagers have done so, adding chairs, a couch, a small table and a 6ft bed. Like the other bedrooms it has a fitted wardrobe and a white marble coal-effect gas fireplace with pretty tiles inset. A big en suite has a bath, double walk-in shower and smart wash-hand basins.
A large family bathroom up a few stairs at the top of the house is part mosaic-tiled and has two sash windows looking over the back garden.
There’s a paved patio at the back of the house as well as one in the centre of the lawn bordered with flower beds, bushes and trees, including a line of silver birches at the back. There’s room to park one car on the right of the railed front garden, which has a lawn on the left of the front path.
Number 32 is a short walk from Leeson Street Bridge. The market rent for a house like this would be about €12,000-€15,000 a month, says Ensor, but he thinks it more likely that the buyer will be someone who wants it as a family home.
