Palatial house on Shrewsbury Road for €25m

THE GOVERNMENT has instructed the Pharmaceutical Society of Ireland to sell its Ballsbridge headquarters - a large Edwardian house on Shrewsbury Road worth an estimated €25 million.

Selling agent Peter Kenny of Colliers Jackson-Stops is to market the property in the UK and overseas in an effort to entice foreign buyers into Dublin's most expensive neighbourhood.

The redbrick house on Shrewsbury Road has almost 929sq m (10,000sq ft) of living space on 0.8 acres of grounds. This includes two high-spec apartments in an original annex. There is also a three-bedroom cottage on the grounds, along with 186sq m (2,000sq ft) of outbuildings once used as lecture halls for Trinity College students of pharmacy.

The society, which controls the pharmaceutical industry in Ireland, and is under the remit of the Department of Health, has owned the property since the 1950s. Until 1998 the buildings were used by Trinity College, but following a £4 million refit in 1999 the society moved in. Its 19 staff will move to alternative offices once a buyer is found.

The 1902 house, originally called Woodside, was designed by Cornish architect Silvanus Trevail, who designed much of the fashionable seaside town of Newquay but who also came to Dublin to design mansions for wealthy Dubliners. Woodside has a wonderful façade of mellow red brick and sandstone mullioned windows. Inside, a monumental staircase rises from the ground to first floor, lit by the deep window of leaded lights. The superb refurbishment, by architects Murray O'Laoire, means that the house is in excellent condition and it would make a fine family home with some modifications.

At the centre of the house, for instance, is an oak-clad lift shaft and lift. There are three reception rooms on the ground floor, all with decorative cornicing and doorcases, polished timber floors and period fireplaces. All the rooms are decorated with antique pharmacy jars, and with portraits of past presidents of the society.

The first floor has a series of lofty rooms while the lift carries on into the attic where there are several more. The two apartments built in the annex are impressive, particularly the first floor unit with a cathedral-like beamed ceiling.

Of course Woodside has development potential, backing as it does onto the site of the former Chester Beatty Library. Here developer O'Malley Homes Developments Ltd has been mired in planning difficulties since buying the site back in 1998.

Acquiring the society property would give better access but would also cause fresh objections from neighbours, including property developer Sean Dunne who, coincidentally, lives in a modern house built two doors down on land originally owned by the society.