Dublin 2: €2.4m.  A Leeson Street house has a most colourful interior, writes Rose Doyle.

One of the few townhouses in private ownership on Lower Leeson Street, Dublin 2 is set to make over €2.4 million at auction through Harper O'Grady on June 1st.

Number 63, a stone's throw from St Stephen's Green, has high, graciously accommodating rooms, colour-defined stucco work and a deep, sheltered rear garden. The walls everywhere are in deep, jewel colours and the mood is exuberant.

Early Victorian features make an immediate statement; colourful plasterwork, coving and ceiling roses, marble fireplaces, carved wood, sash windows, polished floorboards - all are intact and an integral part of the living style of today's house.

There are three storeys over garden level: most of the rooms in the main part of the house, because of the owners' love of entertaining, are in use as reception rooms. This extends to even the first floor return landing which, at the end of a sweep of stairs and with a vaulted side window, is large enough to have been the stage for musical entertainments by string quartets over the years.

As things stand there are four reception rooms in the main part of the house as well as three bedrooms and a kitchen-cum-breakfastroom. Number 63 is also laid out so as to generate income.

The hall, first and second floors make up the private residence, while the top floor has been made separate and commercially leased at an annual rent of €16,000. It reverts to the owner of number 63 in 2009.

The vacant garden/basement level is suitable for renting as an office/surgery. The floor area covers over 372sq m (4,000sq ft), with 232sq m (2,500sq ft) of this in residential use.

The gold, blues and white of the entrance hallway's plasterwork are striking.

An arch half way along frames the rear part of the house, the stairs climbing to the return with its fanlight, the stairs descending dappled with light from the coloured glass of the kitchen door.

A front reception room on this floor is in use as a study. Its original black marble fireplace mirrors that in the rear-facing livingroom.

In this room there is a sash window with side panels and, in one wall, a high, arched alcove. Decorative wood carving over the door catches the pattern in the cornice work.

The breakfastroom has a wall of exposed brick and picture window over the garden while the kitchen has a pine floor, Belfast sink and worktops in beech.

A utility room is fully plumbed and has a guest toilet. A guest bedroom on the first floor return has a shower en suite.

A pair of reception rooms on the first floor show off the house's period finery. The rear drawingroom has wide sash windows overlooking the rear garden while the formal diningroom is painted midnight blue and has two windows over Leeson Street.

The bathroom, on the second floor return, is good-sized, has two shower units attaching to a deep bath and a black and white colour scheme.

A front-facing bedroom has two windows onto Leeson Street while a rear bedroom has interesting small presses built into a wall. Both have marble fireplaces.

The third, leased floor is similar in layout to the second.

There is a separate entrance from Leeson Street to the garden/basement.

It has a waiting room, two offices and toilet.