£1m-plus gems with gardens to match

Ballintoy, a five-bedroom house on 1.25 acres of superb gardens at Ceanchor Road, Howth, Co Dublin, is expected to make over £1.1 million at a Sherry FitzGerald auction on March 24th.

Ceanchor Road is undoubtedly the most prestigious address in Howth and its houses rarely come on the market. Jennifer Guinness and Feargal Quinn are among the owners of the best houses facing the sea.

Ballintoy is not on the sea side of the road, but its gently sloping gardens enjoy clear views of the bay, as do the principal rooms of the house. The house is owned by Liam Jones, the chairman of Goodbodys Stockbrokers and former chairman of the Irish Stock Exchange. His family having grown up and moved away, Mr Jones is planning to move to a smaller house in the area.

He bought the house a decade ago from architect David Keane and later commissioned Mr Keane to design a two-storey extension that would provide extra room for entertaining. Now it is hard to tell where the original house ends and the new section begins. However, the overall impression is of a very comfortable and imaginatively designed home. The current layout includes no less than five reception rooms, but one of these - a large upstairs study - could become an extra bedroom. There is also scope to extend or convert a coach-house style garage at the back of the house. It leads directly off a back hall and at present has a workshop at ground level and a small but remarkably cosy bedroom overhead.

The house has been redecorated from top to bottom in recent years and the colour schemes are bold and imaginative. The large drawingroom has a comfortable, old-fashioned feel with its grey-blue walls and peach carpet but then there is the games room or Mediterranean room, as it's called in the brochure, a huge room with vivid blue walls and blue and yellow curtains, and spacious enough to comfortably seat 20 to dinner. From here steps lead up to the kitchen - a big airy room with a fine array of light oak units and pink speckled granite worktops. There is a small breakfasroom off the kitchen. Also on the ground floor is a large formal diningroom, a small sittingroom, a bedroom and a luxuriously fitted bathroom.

Upstairs, the main bedroom has a bird's eye view of the sea through a dormer window. A neat shower room is tucked away in one corner. There are two single bedrooms with sloping ceilings and these share a family bathroom. The study is a very large room with a wide bay window looking out to sea and a second large window surveying the garden to the side of the house.

As in the gamesroom below, it has an ornate antique fireplace.

The gardens are a blaze of rhododendrons, hydrangeas and fuchsia in summer. There is a large area of lawn in front of the house and a second garden, formerly a vegetable garden running alongside the house and with a path leading up to the main road.

Ballintoy, a five-bedroom house, stands on 1.25 acres of superb gardens, a blaze in summer of rhododendrons, hydrangeas and fuchsia. The huge games room has vivid blue walls and blue and yellow curtains overlooking the garden. It is spacious enough to comfortably seat 20 to dinner