CO DUBLIN: €2.75MONE OF THE FEW houses that sold at auction at the beginning of this year was on Waltham Terrace in Blackrock, an indication of how popular and sought-after this road off Mount Merrion Avenue is.

The semi-detached villa-style house had been modernised and it sold in April for €3.4 million. The same agent, Lisney, is now selling another house on the road and it has put a price of €2.75 million on the private treaty sale of 23 Waltham Terrace. Dating from the mid 19th century it is also a semi-detached villa-style house of 250sq m (2,700sq ft).

The present owners have lived here for 16 years and have recently divided the house's substantial side garden and built a new mews house for themselves.

Villa-style houses are flexible in terms of layout and the owners of this house lived in it as a four-bed house. It's double-fronted so there are two fine reception rooms with high ceilings and tall windows on either side of the hall. Upstairs there are two double bedrooms and a shower room. At garden level, there is an eat-in kitchen, bathroom and two bedrooms.

While the house has been well kept, new owners will almost certainly embark on a modernisation programme. If they don't need so many bedrooms they might decide to concentrate on the garden level and create a larger eat-in kitchen by either extending into the garden or knocking some rooms together. The back garden is full of mature plants and as it backs on to a bowling club, it's not overlooked. New owners might want to improve access to the garden.

The original garden was clearly very large as the new mews house doesn't impinge on the old one.

23 Waltham Terrace,

Blackrock, Co Dublin

Semi-detached four-bedroom villa with mature garden

Agent: Lisney