Dublin 6: A large period house on Highfield Road in Dublin 6 has been extensively renovated and is now a fine family home. Bernice Harrison reports
The owners of 23 Highfield Road in Rathgar bought the period redbrick four years ago with the intention of staying for good. They are now, unexpectedly, on the move out of Dublin, and the house is back on the market through Douglas Newman Good on November 27th with a guide price of €2.4 million.
The house has changed considerably in the four years, due to an extensive renovation programme. It's now a fine family home with four bedrooms and five reception rooms. At 339 sq m (3,650 sq ft) it's also a very large house and all the principal rooms, as well as the stairway, halls and landings have a wonderful sense of space.
It's semi-detached and its Victorian builders made some of the rooms dual aspect so it's a bright house.
In the past year or so there have been a few houses at the top end of the market that have been bought and renovated expressly for resale, and for househunters they're usually very easy to spot.
While they have all the luxury features, such as designer kitchens and bathrooms, they are usually low on the added extras that people who renovate for themselves are willing to invest in, such as underfloor heating, replica cast-iron radiators, multiple television and telephone points, designer tiling, carpeting and curtains.
That's not the case here, where the renovation has the personal stamp of the owners.
The front door is up a flight of granite steps and there is a small reception hall that leads into an inner hall. There are four rooms on this level. The two on the right are very large interconnecting formal reception rooms - both have marble mantelpieces, a decorative frieze over the double doors and, as elsewhere in the house, original shutters on the windows.
On the left is perhaps the most charming room in the house, an irregularly shaped room with large sash windows on two walls and a marble fireplace (moved from one of the rooms upstairs).
It was accessed through an archway but the new owners have squared off the entrance and installed period-style partially glazed double doors.
The fourth room on this level is called the library (because as the admirably honest owner admits they ran out names for the many reception rooms). It's a small room that looks down on the back garden.
There is also a tiny and particularly Victorian addition, a fully-glazed deep bay window at the side of the house that has room for a chair or two but whose main function seems to be to provide access from this level down to the garden via a flight of granite steps.
Upstairs are three bedrooms. A vast main bedroom at the back of the house has an en suite that was created out of a large bedroom.
It has a Jacuzzi bath, walk-in shower, recessed lighting and is fully tiled. The other bedrooms are also large doubles and off one is a room currently fitted out as a walk-in wardrobe - but it is plumbed, so it could easily be changed into an en suite. There is also a shower room on this level.
The fourth bedroom is at garden level, and buyers with a large family of young children might not find this ideal although, as there is also a shower room close by, it would work well for a live-in nanny.
The kitchen is to the front and it is really well done. Made by Robinsons in Belfast, it is cream-painted wood with marble worktops and glass-fronted cabinets. Appliances include a cream two-plate Aga, Miele fridge and freezer and dishwasher. The kitchen opens into a large livingroom which in turn opens into the garden.
To the side of the house there was a garage but that has now been replaced with slate roofed outhouses and a paved patio area.
For a suburban house, the gravelled driveway to the front is long, with parking for several cars, and the back garden has been landscaped. At around 60 feet long, it is roughly square.
