Period house with mews has a great sense of history

Dublin 4/€1.35m: A Victorian era home with a modern mews is on the market for the first time since the 1880s. Kate McMorrow reports

On the market for the first time since it was built in 1884, 15 Marlborough Road has a historic lineage and the air of a home that has seen many interesting gatherings. Some of Ireland's top traditional musicians have visited the house.

Douglas Newman Good is expecting around €1.35 million prior to auction on July 7th for this four-bedroom Donnybrook redbrick, which has 189 sq m (2,000 sq ft) of living space and a contemporary mews house with countless possibilities.

It was one of several on the road built as rental investments by Patrick Cranny, who also built Muckross Park as his family home. This later became the Dominican Convent and school. A daughter married Count Plunkett, who was elected to the first Dáil in 1918. Their son, Joseph Mary Plunkett, was a signatory to the Proclamation of Independence and was executed in 1916.

The family owned several houses on Marlborough Road, all let to senior British civil servants, as was customary then. Number 15 has remained in the family to the present day, passing down through the Cranny family, Plunketts and Dillons to the present owners, DIT lecturer Barbara O'Doherty and her sculptor husband, Eamonn.

While a new owner will inevitably put their own stamp on the house, the ingredients are here to create something quite special. Late Victorian houses tend to be better proportioned and brighter than their earlier counterparts, with larger windows and broader entrance halls.

The traditional front door of number 15 opens to a hall with a high corniced ceiling and a floor of tropical hardwood. To the left is the drawingroom, bright from two sash windows looking out on the front garden. An original marble and cast-iron fireplace is fitted with a gas fire and the floor is wide-plank pine. At the far end of the hall is a family sittingroom which could also be a formal diningroom.Wood floors here continue down an inner hallway with built-in bookshelves.

The quarry tiles on the kitchen/breakfastroom floor are original and in good condition. Double doors open to a flagged terrace. A back lobby leads to a shower room fitted out as a laundry.

The lovely carved mahogany staircase climbs to the first floor landing, off which are four good bedrooms and a family bathroom. Although perfectly functional, the latter could do with an upgrade. All four bedrooms have wood floors and three have fireplaces - one marble, one cast-iron and the third an old-fashioned gas model which is likely to be replaced. Wardrobes are fitted in the two largest rooms. Up a short staircase is a tiny room with a Velux roof window which could be an office or bathroom. At the end of a very pretty rear garden is the mews house, built three years ago by the architect owner.

In contrast to the main house, this has a bright contemporary theme, with crisp white walls and lots of natural light. One huge upstairs bedroom is positioned above the kitchen and bathroom.

However, the mews has been structurally designed to add another internal floor and create more bedroom space. The mews entrance is off a rear laneway to the side of the building. The provision of double metal doors onto the lane, currently blocked by the sittingroom wall, would allow use as a workshop with overhead accommodation. Gardens back and front have the benefit of over a century of maturity. The railed front garden includes an array of shrubs and climbers. Fully slabbed, the back garden has a store, terrace and raised flower beds, with plumbago and jasmine tumbling over the walls.