A large house with sizeable gardens makes an attractive family home. Eoin Lyons reports.
"We shape our dwellings and then, truly, our dwellings shape us." Winston Churchill's bon mots aptly describe the importance of creating a nurturing and happy family home. Lisheen, at 72 Butterfield Avenue, is perhaps the embodiment of this belief.
Spread over 383 sq m (4,100 sq ft) with five bedrooms, it will have a guide price of €2.2 million when auctioned by Lisney on March 2nd.
There are many reasons why this house makes a wonderful family home and, after some refurbishment, there could be many more. It has the comforting solidity found in Stringer-built houses and the gardens extend to 1.1 acres.
A thick band of trees screen the house from busy Butterfield Avenue and the grounds have many of the elements children love in a big garden: winding paths to secret corners, space to play football and plenty of trees to climb. There's also a swimming pool! This sits to one side of the garden beside a barbecue area.
The internal layout is interesting: a small black and white tiled entrance area opens into an inner hall and then into a large reception area. Doors open off this to the principal ground floor rooms. This is a double-height space with a staircase wrapping around three walls until it reaches the first floor. An Adam-style chimneypiece sits to one side and there are two windows, one above and one below the staircase.
Facing the rear garden are the drawing and dining rooms. Both have attractive chimneypieces and are roughly the same size 4.3m x 6.1 m (46.2ft x 65.6 ft) but new owners might consider connecting the two rooms to maximise the view to the garden.
Next to these rooms is a sunroom. Glazed on three sides, it has a door opening onto the patio. The sunroom is accessed from a hall shared by the kitchen. The current owners use this square space as a family room, although it has the potential to become an extension to the kitchen, which is not particularly large.
The kitchen faces the front of the house and, although perfectly workable, new owners are likely to update it. What they won't want to lose however, is its Aga.
Beyond the family room is another reception area that serves as a second entrance at the front of the house. This room leads to a playroom that has sliding doors onto the pool area. Above this room is an office or potential sixth bedroom, accessed by a spiral staircase. This part of the house is a modern addition. Upstairs there are five bedrooms. The main bedroom, which has an en suite, has a bay window with views to the Dublin mountains. Almost all of the other bedrooms are good-sized.
Another attraction to those with children will be the location close to many established primary and secondary schools, as well as Rathfarnham village.
While this is a house with plenty of space for a growing family, it has to be said that it is not to the walk-in standard sought by those with the means to buy such a property. The kitchen and bathrooms need updating. Sadly the windows are PVC replacements. The new owners of Lisheen will shape the destiny of this dwelling and, as Winston might have hoped, those within.
