Spacious redbrick with gracious interior

Rathmines: €3.5mA Victorian era house in a great location has plenty of space for entertaining. Bernice Harrison reports

Temple Villas is at the park end of Palmerston Road, and is made up of a dozen very large Victorian redbricks facing each other across the wide leafy road. Number 12, which is now on the market, is a seven-bedroom semi-detached family house. The pre-auction price is €3.5 million - an indication of how sought-after this part of Dublin 6 has become.

Once the location is right, buyers in this price range look for space and, in particular, space for entertaining and that's certainly a feature of this house. It's double-fronted and there are three reception rooms, one on one side of the good-sized hall, the other two running the depth of the house on the other. These were always interconnecting rooms but the current owners opened them up further by taking out the double doors that would have once divided them and installing two decorative pillars that look just right in what is a gracious room full of period details. There is access from the back of this room down a couple of steps to the eat-in kitchen and also out to the garden.

Upstairs on the half return is a bedroom and one of the two family bathrooms. On up another half-flight of stairs on the first floor there are four more bedrooms off a bright landing. The owners, who moved in 21 years ago and renovated from top-to-bottom, took the dividing doors from the downstairs reception rooms and installed them between two bedrooms so that the main bedroom is now a suite, with the bedroom to the front and a livingroom to the back. Beside these rooms, a single bedroom has been lined with wardrobes so it now functions as a particularly large dressingroom. New owners might change this room into an en suite for the main bedroom. There is another double bedroom on this floor and on upstairs again there are two more bedrooms and another large bathroom.

With over 280 sq m (3,100 sq ft) this is indeed a large house and it feels spacious. It hasn't been extended and new owners might consider extending the kitchen out into the garden - although it is already a good size. Decoratively, there's very little to do.

The west-facing back garden is around 30 metres long and the front garden around 15 metres. There is a large outhouse in the back garden. The lack of driveway car-parking may be a problem for some buyers but there is plenty of on-street car-parking.

Sherry FitzGerald will be auctioning 12 Temple Villas on October 14th and the house is on view by appointment only.