Two very different redbrick houses on St Mary's, one of the best roads in Ballsbridge, are for sale. Rose Doyle reports

3a St Mary's Road: €1.95m Wide and leafy, St Mary's Road - between Northumberland and Pembroke Roads - is one of the nicest residential streets in Dublin 4. Redbrick Victorian houses are set back behind railed and cared for gardens on a road that remains one of the quieter in the area. Two very different houses - one old, one new - are now for sale on St Mary's.

Bellclare, at 3a St Mary's Road, is near the Pembroke Road end of the street. Built in 1992 in what was originally the garden of number 3, Bellclare was carefully designed to fit the style of the road. Ten years later, in 2002, the owners rebuilt at the back of the house, integrating what was a conservatory to create a large open-plan living area with kitchen.

Bellclare sold for €210,000 in 1992. Today's house, which is for sale through Lisney, comes on the market with a guide price of €1.950 million. It will be auctioned on September 28th.

The 2002 modifications added a well-designed, relaxed family room/kitchen to the more traditional design of the rest of the house. The floor area now covers 194sq m (2,090sq ft) and has four bedrooms (two en suite) and three reception rooms.

A series of double doors with glass panels allows light filter through the ground floor drawing, dining and family rooms. Four deep skylights in the family room/kitchen bring more light, which, along with creamy-coloured walls, walnut flooring and oak fittings in the kitchen make for a honeyed, mellow mood. Design features include a curved wall with a row of glass bricks and shelving which emphasises the curve. Kitchen worktops, in an extensively fitted working area, are polished granite. A utility area leads, via a glass door on the other side of the curved wall, to the rear patio.

The front facing drawingroom, which has a bay window and an elaborate oak surround fireplace, leads to a diningroom with the warmest of deep red walls. The bedrooms and white-tiled family bathroom are off a first floor landing lit by a couple of Velux windows.

There are trees and the grounds of St. Mary's Church to the front of Bellclare, but high offices at the rear. The most has been made, however, of a south-facing, walled patio which has circular areas of grass and paving, a mosaic feature in one corner and double gates giving rear access. There is off-street parking to the front.

27 St Mary's Road: €2.7m built in the 1850s, is one of the road's original houses. The semi-detached two-storey, while in need of an imaginative makeover, has high ceilings, intact plasterwork, a sweep of stairs and streaming light through long, sash windows.

The rear south-facing garden is 80ft long and intact, one of very few on St Mary's Road which hasn't had a mews built at the end. Rear access from Pembroke Gardens does, however, allow for the opportunity to build, subject to planning permission.

Agent Sherry FitzGerald is guiding €2.7 million in advance of the September 21st auction.

Wider than it appears from the outside, the 232sq m (2,500sq ft) four-bed has three ground floor reception rooms. The elaborate plasterwork in the hallway is intact and an arch, mirrored on the first floor landing, frames the stairs .

The main reception rooms have white marble fireplaces, interconnecting doors and long sash windows with working shutters. Three of the bedrooms are off the square-shaped first floor landing .

The ground floor return is where thoughtful rebuilding is most needed. A small kitchen would make a utility room while the living/family room could be redesigned as a kitchen-cum- breakfastroom. The gardens have beds of old roses, lawns and evergreens.