Early 20th-century home with contemporary interior on Marlborough Road for €3.25m

Address: Newbury, 11 Marlborough Road, Glenageary, Co Dublin

Price: €3,250,000

Agent: Sherry FitzGerald

With its signature red ceramic tiled roof, Newbury at 11 Marlborough Road is a typical example of a 20th-century house on one of the prettiest roads in the southern suburb of Glenageary.

Houses from this time, 17 of which were constructed by a single developer between 1928 and 1932, were originally built to grant size of about 120sq m (1,300sq ft) but sat on large enough sites.

With the exception of the facade, what now stands on a third of an acre at number 11 Marlborough Road bears little resemblance to what was originally built almost a century ago. Firstly, the size of the property has almost trebled and now extends to a generous 300sq m (3,229sq ft).

Architect Paolo Trolese of CDP Architecture was engaged to overhaul the house, which the owner describes as having been in its original condition and dated, with the addition of extensions to the side and rear. From the outside, this has been achieved in such a sympathetic way that it’s hard to tell where the old part ends and the new addition starts. “What was a bit odd was the fact that there were three steps up to the front hall, so we dropped them and in turn we got 10ft-high ceilings,” says the owner, who is now downsizing locally.

While the photographs don’t quite capture the sense of space and height, the removal of internal walls and lowering of floors achieved the design brief which was “to make a family home in excess of 3,000sq ft with a lovely flow on the ground floor”.

Interior designer Riceal Boisse was tasked with decorating the period house with classic but contemporary interiors: “She really kept us on the right track. It was the small things, like the ceramic tiles [that run throughout the wide hallway, kitchen and adjacent livingroom]. She chose to lay them widthways and it gives a lovely sense of space. It would have looked like a runway if we did it in a linear pattern,” says the owner.

Off the wide hallway are three reception rooms that flow into one another through two sets of double doors.

Two are formal rooms and the third – which links to the kitchen – is a more laid-back livingroom and benefits from access to the sizeable back garden through French doors.

The well-serviced kitchen in pale cream with black granite countertops has double Neff ovens, a five-ring hob, a Liebherr fridge and a waste disposal unit.

A spacious office that would work as a cinema room lies to the left of the hall, and there is lots of storage throughout including in the attic, main hallway and utility. The property’s Ber of B3 is remarkable given its age but shows the extent of renovations that included underfloor heating on the ground floor.

Five well-appointed bedrooms, two of which are en suite, lie upstairs adjacent to the family bathroom.

Outside, there’s still lots of room in the garden, despite the property almost trebling in size, and the fact that there is pedestrian access on both sides – with double gates on one side – will allow machines through should new owners wish to undertake landscaping to the rear.

In a way, Newbury is like a new house masquerading in an old coat, albeit one with a lovely white render capped by red clay tiles. It has all the charm of an old pile underpinned by contemporary and warm interiors.