BALLSBRIDGE €13.5M:IT IS ONLY three years since Milverton, an Edwardian five-bedroom detached house on a third of an acre at 34 Herbert Park in Ballsbridge last came on the market.
In April 2005, it sold for around €8 million after auction.
The doomsayers who are predicting that houses are slipping to 2005 levels will be confounded by this one because Sherry FitzGerald's Simon Ensor is looking for offers in the region of €13.5 million - making it the most expensive house to come on the market in the post-Easter season.
The solid D4 location of this fine detached redbrick - being right beside the park is the huge plus - and the interior space which is spread over 400sq m (3,700sq ft), with no basement and plenty of room for entertaining.
Milverton was built as a showhouse by the top builders of the day, Cramptons, to coincide with the 1907 Dublin International Trades Exhibition in Herbert Park and they used it to showcase their talents.
The rooms are beautifully proportioned, high-ceilinged and bright. There's ornate plasterwork, original mellow coloured oak parquet flooring, carved timber panelling and Adams-style fireplaces, all of which are intact.
The previous owners lived here for 30 years and they were excellent custodians of the Edwardian period details.
The most significant change they made was to extend at the back to create a living-cum-dining room off the kitchen and it is a light-filled comfortable room that overlooks the garden.
Other than that the layout is much as it was when originally built with the superb double drawingroom on one side of the wide hallway, and a formal diningroom on the other side connecting to the kitchen via a useful butler's pantry.
The drawingrooms are particularly good with their matching Adams-style fireplaces, herringbone parquet flooring and tall sash windows in a bay at either end. Together these rooms are almost 17m long, making them ideal for big parties, but tall dividing doors turn them neatly into separate rooms for smaller gatherings.
Upstairs, the first landing leads to a study with an open fireplace, and to the first of the bedrooms, a large tranquil room overlooking the back garden. The first floor has three further double bedrooms, including the main room with its large en suite. The fifth bedroom, with an en suite, is at the top of the house with access out onto a small roof terrace.
Viewers who took a peek last time will find little changed - except decoration. All the rooms have been painted off-white and there is cream carpeting throughout.
The current owners didn't even fall prey to the current fashion for ripping out dated kitchens and bathrooms when they bought three years ago.
They simply gave the pine units in the kitchen a coat of white paint, left the avocado suite in the en suite bathroom and, most unusually at this end of the market, kept the 1970s turquoise suite in the family bathroom.
The back garden has a fountain, a large patio and a curved granite seating area and beautifully mature planting. There is off street parking for three cars.
