It is idle speculation at this point, but in the 1840s, when an indulgent father had a house built on Ranelagh Road for each of his three daughters as a dowry, two of them must have been a little peeved to notice that number 68 is larger and more impressive-looking than the others.
It is on a wider site, at the end of the terrace, so the front door opens into an airy and bright side hall which has a window at the side, looking out on Northbrook Avenue.
Otherwise the four-bedroom house follows a traditional early Victorian layout with over 220sq m (2,360sq ft) of space. It is for sale by Gunne’s for €1,175,000.
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What is immediately striking about the interior is that while the house looks very large from the outside, inside the rooms are manageable and are not the grand-scale rooms found in other houses of the period. There are two interconnecting rooms at hall level, a living room to the front with two tall sash windows, and a smaller formal dining room to the back.
The current owners an architect – with a special interest in conservation – and his family, have lived here for more than 40 years. They are now downsizing.
When they moved in, there was a tenant at garden level and so they put their kitchen – recently refitted with modern high gloss units – in the first floor return with a spiral staircase down to the garden.
When the tenant left, rather than moving their kitchen downstairs as new owners might do, they turned the main room to the front into office space, opened one of the back rooms out on to the garden and now use it as a cosy family room, while the other back room is a fourth bedroom.
It worked as a professional office because there is access to this level from the side and new owners might use it in that way, although it could also once again become a self-contained apartment.
Upstairs there would originally have been only two bedrooms – the large one to the front and another spacious double to the back. The current owners extended the return to make room for another bedroom and a shower-room, which was recently refurbished. There is also a guest toilet in the reception hall.
The house, like its neighbours, has a long front garden, so it is well back from the road, as well as a good-sized back garden. There is off-street parking for one car at the end of the back garden behind an electrically controlled shutter.
