Villa style and very stylish in Ranelagh

Prices in some Dublin suburbs, particularly Ranelagh, experienced a significant price surge in 1997-1998.  Auctions – and runaway prices – became common and the room was packed when 66 Beechwood Avenue Upper went under the hammer in 1998. The guide price – no advised minimum values back then – for the Catholic Church-owned house was an attractive £140,000 (houses that had been done up in the area were going for about £300,000).

The redbrick semi-detached villa-style house, built in the late 1890s, was in very poor condition – hence the price – but on the day, after strong bidding, it finally sold for £235,000, hugely in excess of the guide. Having inevitably bid more than they thought they would, the owners, a young couple, set about renovating the single-storey-to-the-front, two-storey-to-the-rear house, which first needed gutting, then extending.

In 2000 they extended out at the rear, creating an ideal family kitchen-cum-livingroom. A wall of glazed doors now opens out on to the landscaped garden, there’s custom-built painted timber units with a central island, extensive storage along one wall, room for a family size dining table, and a large seating area in front of a Stovax wood-burning stove. There’s under-floor heating beneath the limestone tiles and a large rooflight – it’s a bright and airy space.

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66 Beechwood Avenue Upper, in Ranelagh, Dublin 6

The extension made space for a large bedroom upstairs, which freed up a small bedroom to be converted into a family bathroom. There is also further double bedroom upstairs.

In 2007 a growing family prompted a further extension, this time involving the creation of a basement room at the front of the house. A window to the front was installed and what was a small low-ceilinged cellar was turned into a bedroom with an adjacent shower room and a large utility room, opening out to a side passage.

One room that remains pretty much in its original configuration is the front livingroom off the hall, with its tall sash window looking out on to the road. An attractive feature here is the limed-oak parquet flooring, which is also in the hall.

There was a further update – this time decorative – in 2013 and so, nearly two decades later, number 66 is a very different proposition, in walk-in condition, with 164sq m (1,765sq ft) of space and tastefully decorated, leaving nothing for new owners to do.

Lisney is the agent with an asking price of €1.175 million.

Prices on Beechwood and its surrounding roads are once again around the million mark, although this area is one place where the Property Price Register is of little use, because there is a variety of house styles and they tend to come on the market in wildly varying condition.

A villa-style house at 30 Annesley Park sold in August for €930,000, while another villa-style house, in need of renovation, at 1 Beechwood Avenue Upper sold last month for €715,000; and number 57 Beechwood Avenue Upper, a two-storey renovated house, sold late last year for €1.25 million.