Sutton home with sea views - and potential

Dublin 13/€3.5m: A seven-bedroom home on the Strand Road in Sutton needs complete refurbishment - but another house could be built in its garden, says Bernice Harrison

With its uninterrupted views of Dublin Bay and the water lapping up just a narrow roadway away, Strand Road is one of the northside's prime - if low key - addresses. The houses that line it are all different, dating back to the 1850s.

Knocknagow is a detached ivy clad house which has been in the same family for decades - they originally used it as a holiday home - but it's been vacant for some time.

It's in poor condition but the location, size - it's 260sq m (2,800sq ft) - and possible development potential means that Douglas Newman Good and JB Kelly have put an AMV of €3.5 million on it advance of the auction on September 28th.

Inside there are four reception rooms and seven bedrooms and a bathroom as well as a large kitchen, boot room and assorted pantries.

It needs major renovation from top to bottom but the proportions, in the main rooms at least, are excellent - several rooms have dual aspects, which in this house means more views of the sea.

The ceilings on both levels are higher than average and the hallways and landings are spacious and bright.

The house, which is nearly opposite the local dinghy club, once sat on well over an acre but now the two-thirds of an acre of garden is mostly at the back.

Here's where some buyers might be weighing up the development potential, thinking that they might be able to build a second house at the end of the garden without detracting too significantly from the main house.

All that will be subject to planning permission. The granite-walled gardens both front and back are predictably lush and mature and there's off-street parking that could easily be enlarged.

Directly at the back of the house is an old cut-stone shed, possibly an old stable.