Victorian elegance on sought-after Silchester Road for €2.95m

An imposing Victorian house on one of south Co Dublin’s most sought-after roads has lots of the standard handsome features of its period – and then some. Simple but elegant chandeliers throughout this 590sq m (6,350sq ft) property appear to be original. There are amber-coloured, leaded stained-glass windows and doors, along with elaborate plasterwork in many rooms and lovely brass door plates and door handles. It also has direct access to Glenageary tennis club from a door in the back garden.

Coolarne, on Silchester Road, Glenageary, has been freshly decorated and staged for sale by the Interiors Project. This seven-bedroom, two storey over garden level semi-detached house, is for sale through Sherry FitzGerald for €2.95 million. The Property Price Register shows that it sold in 2016 for €2.75 million – this was an interfamily transfer. While the house has been well-maintained by the family, who have owned it since the 1970s, new owners will probably want to upgrade and perhaps reconfigure some areas and even extend it at the back. The 159sq m (1,603sqft) garden level alone could be a comfortable self-contained apartment after refurbishment, subject to planning permission. The house has an E1 Ber rating.

Granite steps lead up to a sheltered front porch with original encaustic floor tiles. The front door opens on to a front lobby, and from there through a door with a stained-glass panel into the entrance hall, which runs the width of the house. At the immediate left, through an arch, is a tall stained-glass window beside a few steps leading up to a toilet. Straight ahead are wide stained-glass double doors opening into a large room towards the back of the house, and on the right, a drawingroom at the front with a study off of it.

The drawingroom, grey-carpeted and painted white, like most rooms in the house, has a nearly floor-to-ceiling bay with double-glazed sash windows looking over the front garden; it has a deep frieze and elaborate cornicework. The centre roses are painted white and contrasting deep peach. A door from here opens into a timber-floored room fitted out as a small study.

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The wide stained-glass doors on the opposite side of the hall open into a space described as a family room, with a marble fireplace and stained-glass windows. This leads into an unusual room described by the agents as an orangery, an over 46sq m (500sq ft) livingroom with a polished timber floor, very deep roof lantern and three steps at the side leading up to a marble fireplace with seating beside it. It opens through double doors into a conservatory.

The kitchen and breakfast room is not, as you might expect, at garden level but is off the front hall opposite the drawingroom. It’s large, but relatively modest given the size of the house, with an island unit with polished granite top, plain timber cupboards and a big dining area; there’s a large utility room off it. Double doors open on to a deck leading down into the back garden.

The hall and staircase are panelled below the dado rail, with striking floral wallpaper above and two stained-glass lights. There are four double bedrooms on the first floor, three at the front, with the main bedroom stretching the width of the house, overlooking the back garden. It’s an unusual room with a wide decorative arch marking off a dressing area with a wall of mirrored wardrobes. The en suite, with an oval bath and shower at the other side of the room, is a little dated, like other bathrooms in the house. They are all off a large landing, which, like the hall below, has a high ceiling with a decorative frieze and a large stained-glass window at its end.

Twenty-one steep steps lead to the top, attic floor, where there are two double bedrooms – original to the house – with Velux windows, and a large 1980s-style pine-panelled bathroom with a sauna.

Double doors from the front garden lead down into the garden level of the house, a space that has one bedroom, a small kitchen with a tiled floor, a room described as a family room and, at the front, a very large room the agents describe as a games room. It has separate entrances at the side and back of the house and could be used as an apartment for a guest or an au pair.

The back garden is mainly in lawn, sheltered by high walls and tall, mature trees. It has a pond and a door at the end opening directly into a lane beside the tennis courts of Glenageary tennis club. There is plenty of parking in the gravelled front garden behind electronic front gates.

Coolarne is in the Silchester Road architectural conservation area, which runs from Adelaide Road to roughly halfway down Silchester, but it is not a protected structure.