Year-round colour in a sylvan setting

The term "sylvan" is - for once - not overstated when applied to a detached house new to the market on Ferndale Road, Rathmichael, Co Dublin. Daphne L Kaye & Associates is guiding £800,000 (1.02 million) for Fernhill, a 3,000 sq ft five-bedroom house on an acre of well-tended gardens. The house goes to auction on 11th October next.

The auction will be a test for property values in this upmarket south Dublin suburb, where strong prices are usually expected. On the same road, a six-bedroom house on three acres, which failed to sell at auction last April, subsequently changed hands for just under £900,000 (1.14 million).

Like its neighbours on Ferndale Road, Fernhill is bordered by groves of mature trees and invisible from the road. Built in the late 1960s, cattle grazed in the field behind the house when the present owners moved in 15 years ago and the garden was a wilderness.

Since then, the acre has been lovingly planted with every imaginable species of tree and flowering shrub and the resulting garden is a delight. The house is two-storey, with an arched veranda to the front and Tudor-style leaded windows.

Built in an era when space was not an issue, Fernhill's ample accommodation makes it an ideal house for a growing family. The downstairs rooms lead off a 20 ft parquet-floored entrance hall.

To the right is the family's summer sittingroom, which has doors at either end to a suntrap front terrace and a rear courtyard. A mahogany fireplace is fitted with a gas fire. Double doors open from this room to the diningroom, which has a parquet floor.

Another sittingroom - dubbed the winter room - is cosier, with a bay window overlooking the front and French doors to the superb back garden. The open fireplace is marble, with a cast-iron inset.

The kitchen/breakfastroom is bright, with a good range of old-fashioned but solidly made oak units and a tiled floor. Doors lead out to a flagged terrace, fitted with an outdoor bar and a brick barbecue.

Also downstairs is a large room used as a study, with handsome floor-to-ceiling bookcases which the owners are leaving behind.

Five bedrooms are arranged off a wide galleried landing. The bow-windowed main bedroom has a bank of fitted wardrobes and a large en suite bathroom with a polished wood floor.

There are three further double bedrooms with wardrobes and a good single room. The attic space is also large and could be converted, if more bedrooms are needed.

Expansive back and front gardens are divided up visually by clever planting. At the front, a gravelled driveway is flanked by lawn and herbaceous borders.

An L-shaped pergola outside the winter room is covered with climbing roses, honeysuckle and ivy.

The lawn sweeps around to a copse of ash and oak trees and there is also a mini-tropical section with palms and bamboo. A magnificent Sumach close to the house is beginning to turn a seasonal burnished orange.