The strength of the market for Dublin 4 houses over £1 million (€1.27m) will be tested next month when a newly refurbished period house at Strand Road, Sandymount, goes to auction. Jackson-Stops is quoting in excess of £1.2 million (€1.52m) for the six-bedroom semi-detached house, which is in immaculate condition having been renovated by husband and wife team John Bourke and Isabelle Morton.
The couple's business is buying and selling houses and, having renovated several large properties in recent years, they have a good idea of what buyers at the upper end of the market want.
Strand Lodge has an impressive 4,500 sq ft of living space, fitted out to a high spec with period features such as cornicing and Georgian-style fireplaces. There are also lots of mod cons including Jacuzzi baths and a large American fridge, which takes pride of place in the superb ground floor kitchen-cum-diningroom.
Strand Lodge was built in 1830 as a single-fronted house overlooking the sea. Bourke and Morton bought it about two years ago and set about an ambitious refurbishment that involved extending the house to twice its original size and replicating the original gable wall in the new section. It now has five reception rooms, furnished with over £60,000 (€76,180) worth of furniture from the new Minnie Peters store (formerly Crate & Barrell) in D·n Laoghaire. This can be bought separately, although the top-of-the-range kitchen appliances are to be included in the sale.
Selling agent Edwin Dempsey expects the property to appeal to well-off families who want a period house without refurbishing: "People are finding it almost impossible to find architects, never mind builders, and this kind of work takes well over a year to complete."
There is plenty of off-street parking in a wide gravelled bay in front of the house. Steps lead up to a smart black front door that opens into a spacious hallway. The first impression is of plenty of light, thanks to an opening overhead that allows light to spill in from a tall window on the top floor.
To the left is a wonderful drawingroom that runs the full depth of the house with tall sash windows at either end. The view to the front is towards the twin towers of the Pigeon House, while the rear window looks over the small but sheltered back garden. With its twin Georgian-style fireplaces, restrained cornicing and polished pine floor, this room is really the finest in the house.
There are three more reception rooms at this level - a sittingroom that overlooks the garden and two interconnecting rooms that are furnished as a diningroom and office.
An inner hall has a staircase leading to the top floor where there are four bedrooms, including the main bedroom with a superb bathroom. There is a guest room with an en suite shower room, while the two remaining bedrooms share a very spacious family bathroom with a Jacuzzi bath and walk-in power shower.
The ground floor has two more bedrooms, one of them with a large en suite shower room. There is also a family room with French doors to the garden, but the key room at this level is the kitchen-cum-diningroom. Hand-painted units, granite worktops and a pale ceramic-tiled floor make this a very attractive space. An adjoining utility room has a service lift to the diningroom upstairs. The back garden faces south-west and has access to a laneway which is part of the property.
