Wellington Road in Ballsbridge is wide and stately with gardens to the front of its mid-19th century houses. Number 75 is typical in every way, from the tall elegance of its 3.5m-high ceilings and long, shuttered windows to decorative plasterwork, a domed window over the return and traditional, gracefully curving arches. Original floorboards and internal doors are intact, original window shutters function, as do the fireplaces.
The entrance hallway and formal reception rooms, with original and functioning marble fireplaces, picture rails, elaborate cornicing, panelled doors, tiles, woodwork and with light streaming through from the front to the rear of the house, make the grandest of statements about No 75’s origins. A new owner will be buying into the history of a home well lived in.
The houses along Wellington Road were built between 1845 and 1855, the timespan a consequence of the area’s owners, the Pembroke Estate, holding out for the right developer and offers.
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Generations of the last owner’s family have lived in number 75 since 1924, when it was bought by Richard and Sara Richardson. Their only son, Leopold, was a distinguished classicist whose daughter, Hilary Richardson, an archaeologist, art historian and artist, lived in the house until a year ago.
What No 75 doesn’t have and needs is a modernising revamp, one that would install a new kitchen and bathrooms and, depending how a new owner wanted to live there, an updated layout to change the role of a garden floor apartment.
Alternatively, a new owner could continue to earn an income from the rental of the garden level. It needs the guts of a €1 million investment to become a contemporary home.
The coach house/mews site at the end of the rear garden offers further income possibilities. A solid stone, two-storey building, with not a little charm about its façade and cobblestone floor, this could be sold as is together with a portion of the 45m-long garden.
Alternatively, subject to planning permission, it could be rebuilt and sold on as a mews. A majority of the neighbouring gardens have mews conversions at their end.
With a 258sq m (2,777sq ft) floor area, the present lay-out has four bedrooms, two reception rooms, kitchen and bathroom in the main house and a bedroom, livingroom, bathroom and kitchen in the garden apartment, to which there is a separate entrance. Savills is asking €2.25 million for what is an executor’s sale.
