A residence ripe for restoration in Dundrum

Enderly, at the top of Sweetmount Avenue in Dundrum, is one of those houses that you hope will find that rare thing - a buyer with very deep pockets who will manage to find a way to modernise the 17th-century house without taking away from its undeniable charm.

The sprawling 271sq m (2,918sq ft) house, just a short walk from Dundrum Town Centre, has stables, outbuildings, an orchard and a vast, old- world garden and is on 1.28 acres.

It's to be auctioned on June 12th by Ganly Walters with an AMV of €700,000. This house needs a tremendous amount of work – you could live in it at the moment if you fancied wearing a woolly hat and a thick cardi at all times and if you were maybe a little bohemian in your approach to damp, but new owners will most likely do an enormous renovation and restoration job on the listed property.

It is catalogued with Dún Laoghaire Co Council as one of the notable buildings in the area in terms of heritage and history. Had this come up for sale during the boom, the size of the plot, the extensive road frontage and the suburban location would have made it a magnet for developers – now there is a chance that it will continue as a private family home. Although as the walled orchard with its road frontage is quite separate from the house and gardens it might pique the interest of some small developer who will then have to figure out what to do with the house.

Enderly is double-fronted and semi-detached though that’s not immediately obvious as a high wall divides it from its neighbour. The adjoining house, the completely refurbished Orchardton, which is quite different in terms of style and on a considerably smaller plot, sold last year for €1.3 million.

Enderly is an executor’s sale and it last changed hands in 1961 when the house and the garden were bought for £1,500 and the owners later bought the adjoining orchard. The owner was a keen horsewoman – in the early 1960s before the surrounding area was developed she used ride out from her stables and head up to Ticknock.

She was also a keen gardener – flowers, fruit, vegetables, a rockery, the lot – indeed the gardens were once the subject of an RTÉ programme on notable town gardens and the Plant Society regularly conducted guided tours of it. It is a little overgrown now – but its caretakers who live in the house have done a good ongoing maintenance job so it's easy to get an idea of just how spectacular it was in its heyday.

The gardens will bring buyers into the auction room but the house itself was also once lovely with five bedrooms rambling over two storeys. There is plenty of period plaster coving and timber panelling but only a restoration expert would be able to tell if any could be brought back. Right now it all looks in very poor condition.

It’s a very private site and there is parking in the large front garden for several cars.