BLACKROCK: €795,000:A six-bedroom Victorian family home with period features could make a good renovation project
FANCY a project that lets you put your own stamp on it? Dunnottar, 7 Avoca Avenue, Blackrock, Co Dublin, is a roomy, semi-detached Victorian redbrick in need of some serious TLC. This doer-upper, double bay-fronted, six-bedroom house has an asking price of €795,000, through agent Knight Frank.
The grande dame property is in need of more than a facelift. The house measures 223sq m (2,400sq ft). There are damp patches in many of the rooms and the kitchen needs a complete overhaul.
But the bones of a great house are all there – original features such as coving and cornicing, fireplaces in all the rooms including the six bedrooms, sash windows and high ceilings, making it a great blank canvas to work on. There are original stained-glass panels in the front door, the box bay windowed sitting room and in the side window on the first floor return.
Black-and-white tiles on the entrance porch lead into a square sittingroom to the left that is perfect as a den for the kids. To the right of the entrance hall are two large, elegant interconnecting rooms. The diningroom is to the front of the house and the drawingroom to the rear. Their interconnecting doors slide rather than open back, which saves space and also makes the rooms feel more polished when theyre opened.
The drawingroom is the only room where the original fireplace tiles have been removed. It’s a pity but easily fixed with something more aesthetically pleasing than the brown 1940s utilitarian tiles that are in situ.
Off the drawingroom is a small sunroom. The next owner would probably either rebuild it in a more draught excluding fashion or get rid of it altogether.
On the return there is a small wc and a large eat-in L-shaped kitchen that needs rethinking. The dining area is dark while the painted yellow kitchen part is sunny in colour but needs complete modernisation. There is a square pantry off the kitchen, a nice addition that you could work into a newly configured space. The original servants’ bell box is still in situ.
On the first floor there are four bedrooms – three doubles and one box room – as well as a separate family bathroom and toilet. All have high ceilings and the two doubles to the front have twin windows.
The fireplaces are all painted metal art nouveau styles. The back double bedroom still has a bell to ring for service and could be the perfect place to put teenagers still under the illusion that you are their personal slaves.
On the first floor return there is a fifth double bedroom. A door opens onto the roof of the one-storey extension that was built to house the kitchen below.
A house two doors down has put railings around their extension to create a balcony area. This would be subject to planning permission. This room has a serious damp problem.
On the second floor return there is another double bedroom. An open-thread staircase leads up to the walk-in attic that would also need work to be fully accessible but would make a great storage space.
With some serious investment this is a supermodel home in the making.
The back garden is the old-fashioned kind, with mature fruit trees and an overgrown vegetable patch. It measures 33 metres long and 13 metres wide and has seen better days. It is north-west facing but has sun all the time because of its sheer size. The fruit from mature apple trees falls to the ground and there are even peaches growing in some of the many lean-to green houses that colonise the garden. There is a pedestrian side entrance and vehicular rear access via a lane onto Sydney Terrace.
Out front there is also a mature garden as well as off-street parking for at least three cars. The house is situated on the northern side of Avoca Avenue, the Blackrock Village end.
