AROUND THE BLOCKRoyal Terrace House is a handsome property overlooking Dún Laoghaire's fashionable Royal Terrace. Posted for sale through Lisney last August this tastefully decorated and restored five-bed was asking €1.45 million. A couple of months later it dropped to €1.395 million.

On closer inspection it’s possible that the premises next-door might be putting would-be buyers off taking the plunge with this double-bay fronted delight.

Next door is the run down rear of Cottage Home, a listed Victorian building on Tivoli Road, a former children’s home. In 2008 permission was granted to build a Victorian-style terrace on the side facing on to Royal Terrace North and to convert the Cottage Home into five large houses. Though nothing has happened since, an application for a five year extension of the permission was granted in June last.

Any prospective buyer of Royal Terrace House won’t have to go too far to enquire re the plans for next door, given that both properties are in the portfolio of developer Robin Power. Power made his name in the 1980s with Powerscourt Townhouse Centre and the St Stephen’s Green Shopping Centre, and in the 1990s snapped up a host of prestige seaview properties in Dublin for exclusive lets. He paid an estimated €6 million for Cottage Home in 2005. Now it’s unclear whether the plans will ever go ahead, or if it too will be placed for sale.