Doer-uppers on the double

DONNYBROOK: €2.5M & €500,000:Two of the most interesting renovation opoprtunities to come on the market in Dublin 4 this year are being offered for sale by Felicity Fox. Both are in Donnybrook, were once part of the same estate and, while both require pots of money to make them habitable, they don't require a great deal of vision as existing architectural plans show just what can be done.

To create the upmarket Edward Square scheme, developer Gerry Barrett bought the old Quaker HQ and lands off Morehampton Road in Donnybrook. That development is now complete and mostly sold, but his plans for two of the original houses on the site, the early Georgian Swanbrook House and its detached outbuilding, now called Swanbrook Cottage, have changed. He was going to renovate and include them in the Edward Square scheme but now they are for sale: Swanbrook House for €2.5 million and Swanbrook Cottage for €500,000.

Both are protected structures and, in a poor piece of timing, the planning permission (based on plans by Douglas Wallace) has now run out, so new owners will have to reapply for planning.

Swanbrook House has 401sq m (4,300sq ft) and is on over a third of an acre, an impressive-sized plot in this part of Dublin. It is accessed from both Bloomfield Avenue and from the new, manicured garden square. There are 15 houses in the square and Swanbrook is in one corner. Decades of institutional use and time – it’s been vacant for over five years – have left it in need of major renovation but the potential is obvious. Double fronted with gracious Georgian proportions, the rooms will be stunning when returned to their former glory. It’s listed in the agent’s details as an 11-bedroom house but really it’s going to make a super-luxurious four or five-bed. While all that is going to take a great deal of money, it’s worth noting that one of the new houses on the square went for a boom-time €6 million and buyers of this house will be getting a period property. Swanbrook Cottage is a much more modest proposition and will appeal to a different type of buyer, one perhaps interested in a well-located mews. It was probably originally staff quarters of some sort for the Big House.

At an attractively priced €500,000 for a detached 140sq m (1,500sq ft) D4 house, there’s going to be a great deal of interest in the cottage but buyers should know that it needs everything. It’s on a lovely site with good gardens to the front and rear, so there would appear to be room to expand. The plans drawn up by Douglas Wallace have it as a spacious two-bed. It has off-street car-parking and it doesn’t feel overlooked or hemmed in, in the way some mews houses do.

Swanbrook House and Swanbrook Cottage, Edward Sq, Dublin 4

Period houses needing refurbishment in high-end scheme

Agent: Felicity Fox