An elegant two-storey house, Trefleur, on 1.65 acres of grounds at Westminster Road, Foxrock, Dublin 18, which goes to auction on June 21st, is expected to be bought either by a wealthy family with a strong interest in gardening or a developer who will demolish it and replace it with an apartment scheme.

Hamilton Osborne King is quoting a guideline price of £4 million for the house, which has outstanding gardens sheltered by mature hardwood trees.

Pat Nolan of the agency says his hunch is that Trefleur will go to a house-builder because of the popularity of Westminster Road and the potential to construct up to 40 apartments in the grounds. The site has 100 metres of frontage on to Westminster Road and is directly opposite Westminster Hall, a three-storey apartment complex completed about six years ago. A standard two-bedroom apartment there sold last year for £300,000, while a two-bedroom penthouse made £355,000 around the same time.

Trefleur has three fine reception rooms, all with full-length arched windows looking over the gardens. The diningroom opens out on to a veranda surrounded by plants and shrubs. One of the four good-sized bedrooms upstairs has an en suite bathroom and a separate dressingroom. There is a range of other buildings, including a wine cellar, a potting shed and a double garage.