Monkstown: €2.85m. Number 31 Seapoint Avenue, Monkstown, Co Dublin is one of a pair of tall, redbrick houses built in 1830. It's a large house, with some 418sq m (4,500sq ft) of floor space, and elegant to boot.
When last on the market, in 1995, it sold for £300,000. This time round, illustrating the difference a decade makes in the property market, agent Douglas Newman Good is guiding €2.85 million in advance of its auction on June 1st.
With two storeys over garden level this is a house of high ceilings and immaculately intact plasterwork. Original windows include an expansive bay as well as sash windows with side panels and there are eight original fireplaces.
This is a house, too, that earns its keep with the garden level in two apartments which bring in €24,000 per year in rent. In the main, residential part of the house there are five/six bedrooms (two en suite) and three reception rooms.
A pair of matching, black-and-white marble fireplaces give a nice symmetry to the main, interconnecting reception rooms. The front windows have clever storage built-in underneath and those to the rear overlook the sloping, tree surrounded rear garden. A door in the wall, which once led to steps down to the garden level, now opens to reveal a drinks cabinet.
A third reception room, on the other side of the hallway, has another marble fireplace and wide bay window to the front as well as a side window. The windows in all three reception rooms have functioning shutters.
The floor tiling in the very traditional hallway picks up part of the plasterwork's motif while the half-way arch has a plaited plasterwork surround. There is a guest toilet with basin at the end of the hallway.
The smallish kitchen / breakfastroom has timber, rustic-style fittings and walk-in pantry. It opens into the rear garden and well laid-out barbecue area.
A small room off the half landing on the first floor return (which has a pair of high, arched windows) is currently a playroom but could be a bedroom.
The spacious, first floor landing has two arches, a high, built-in wardrobe/storage unit and dado rail. The five bedrooms are off this landing, along with a family bathroom. All of the bedrooms have original fireplaces while the main one has views of Howth and an en suite with old-style bath and shower attachment.
A second bedroom, to the rear, has an en suite reached via stairs from the room itself. The ceiling is vaulted, the walls marble tiled and there is a Jacuzzi, separate shower and sauna.
Two of the remaining bedrooms face the front while the third, rear bedroom has deep red walls and a bank of newly fitted wardrobes.
The garden level apartments have their own, separate entrances to the front and rear. One is a two-bedroom with kitchen, bathroom and livingroom. The other has one bedroom, kitchen, bathroom, livingroom and wine cellar.
High hedging to the front gives privacy from the busy main road and shelters a gravelled, off-street car-parking area.
