The man who built 22 Rostrevor Road in Rathgar in 1926 kept the most meticulous records you're likely to see. In a large ledger that is still in the house he noted down the price of every brick, every pane of glass and each length of timber he bought. He was a businessman who built the house using direct labour and he recorded how much he paid the workmen whom he named in tidy copperplate.
In the end he was able to accurately tot up the final cost of the house - £1,550 (#1,969) - which excluded the cost of the quarter-acre site in Dublin 6. In the mid-1920s that was a significant amount of money. When he came to sell it in 1959, a value of £4,000 (#5,080) was put on the house.
Douglas Newman Good is now guiding £600,000 (#762,000) for the house, which will be auctioned on March 23rd.
Back in 1959 the new owners refurbished the ground floor of the house in what must have been a very up-to-the-minute style. They blocked off the stairway leading to the upper floor which they laid out as a self-contained unit accessed via a door at the back of the house. For some reason this arrangement didn't work out and the spacious upper floor has been unused for the past 40 years.
The design of the bungalow came from a 1920s Daily Mail architecture competition and it is most unusual. It is double fronted and the rooms on either side of the front door are large reception rooms; one a formal diningroom, the other a livingroom.
The large hall is lit by a stained glass window. Thanks to the design of the entrance porch this is not visible from the front of the house. This hall would originally have had a fireplace but that has been blocked up.
There are three double bedrooms on the ground floor. One of them features most unusual built-in wardrobes made from the now rare afrormosia wood. The kitchen must have been the height of 1960s interiors chic - the units are a vivid orange topped with navy Formica and there are orange vinyl tiles on the floor. The bathroom is very rundown.
Upstairs there are five or six rooms that are all bright due to the large dormer windows. There are bits of floors, walls and ceilings missing so it is not an exaggeration to say that the upper floor of the house needs total replanning and renovation. The downstairs, particularly the bathroom and kitchen, will also have to be renovated.
Outside there is a garage, several rundown outhouses and a conservatory. To get to the garage you drive around the back of the house.
The garden is eccentric with large castellated garden features which were constructed by the house's original owner. There is also a stone-built covered garden seat which must have been reclaimed from some far older building somewhere.
