€5.85m for family home on Ailesbury

A 1950s house around the corner from the most expensive road in Europe has lots of potential. Orna Mulcahy, Property Editor, reports

The record €5.85 million sale of Walford on Shrewsbury Road in Ballsbridge has been a major topic of conversation in Dublin 4 all summer, with the identity of the buyer yet to be revealed.

Meanwhile, owners in the immediate area of Shrewsbury and Ailesbury have been ramping up the value of their own homes in the light of the extraordinary price paid for Walford and its 1.8 acres of grounds.

While the price clearly indicates the development potential of the property, neighbours will inevitably have been adding millions to the value of their own homes on what is now one of the most expensive roads in Europe.

Around the corner on Ailesbury Road, prices have been quietly creeping up too, with its large redbrick semis now valued at anywhere between €8 and €15 million.

Earlier this year number 27, a three-storey Victorian semi, sold for €9 million at auction through McNally Handy, while close by, a three-bedroom garden flat in a similar Victorian house was sold for over €2 million by Sherry FitzGerald, which also sold a penthouse in the St Ann's apartment complex, at the end of Ailesbury Road, for around €2.45 million.

Buyers looking for a family home on the road this season will be interested in the sale of number 62, a two-storey house at the Donnybrook end of Ailesbury Road.

The five-bedroom house has been in the same family for the last 51 years and comes to the market in pristine condition.

Simon Ensor of Sherry FitzGerald - who sold Walford - is quoting €5.85 million prior to auction on September 20th.

It's a good-sized family house on around a third of an acre, with plenty of off-street parking in front, and a fine sheltered back garden with scope to extend.

The owners had at one stage planned to stay on the property and had extended to one side to make a very good, self-contained two-bedroom apartment with its own garden. This could easily be incorporated back into the main house to make a larger kitchen or family room overlooking the garden. However, new owners may decide to keep part of it separate from the main living space, either for staff or as an office.

With a total floor area of 297sq m (3,200sq ft) this is a fine family home on two levels, with tremendous potential to extend outwards as well as into the roof space where there is a full size attic.

Although the house is in very good order, it's likely to be bought by someone who intends to remodel it entirely in a more contemporary and opulent style.

The current layout has two good interconnecting reception rooms running from front-to-back of the house and divided by an archway fitted with unusual wrought iron gates. Both rooms have polished timber floors and the drawingroom to the front has a fireplace fitted with a gas fire.

A door from the back of the hall leads to a cosy family room which opens directly into the kitchen diningroom that overlooks the back garden.

This part of the house was extended in the 1980s, and from here it would be easy to break through to the adjoining apartment with its sunny garden room and open-plan kitchen-cum-dining area. There is a small utility room off the main kitchen and it has kept its original terazzo floor.

Upstairs, there are two fine double bedrooms and two single bedrooms, while the fifth bedroom is currently used a study.

The main bedroom has a spacious en suite while the remaining rooms share a family bathroom with an impressively sturdy bath.

The back garden is mostly in lawn bounded by mature shrubs. Double wooden gates lead through to a hidden garden that goes with the apartment, and has its own patio and meandering pathway to a large garden house.

Number 62 will be on view from next Thursday, September 1st.