Elgin Road in Ballsbridge has long been known as the "embassy belt", something the owners of number 9 Elgin Road are more familiar with than most as their house is next door to the Embassy of the Republic of Kenya and is opposite the landmark US embassy.
It’s a road too that saw one of the highest price house sales in the country last year when number 18 sold for €4.8 million. That house had been given a major and very expensive ultra contemporary makeover and was a very different proposition from number 9, which is currently for sale through GVA Donal O’Buachalla for €2 million.
There are many different styles of imposing redbrick period homes on this wide leafy road and number 9 is a two storey over garden level Victorian with 319 sq m (3,434 sq ft). It would originally have had a stable or mews at the end of the back garden, but that was divided off years ago and the house now has a reasonable sized, walled, south facing rear garden.
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Its front door entrance at the top of a wide sweep of granite steps is to the right, so that the front reception room is vast. Indeed it is the scale of this house as well as the Ballsbridge address that will attract buyers.
They may wish to reconsider the layout. These type of houses traditionally have very good reception rooms – there are two fine ones at hall level here – but, given their size, relatively few bedrooms. There are three upstairs, one with an ensuite and there is also a small family bathroom in the return.
The fourth bedroom is at hall level to the rear of the house and there is a study in the first floor return.
Down at garden level there is a kitchen, a small study and a family room, as well as a bathroom .
New owners may consider opening up the space down here by knocking at least the two rooms to the front into one and perhaps create better access to the rear garden, or most likely extend at the back.
Given its location, there is also the potential, subject to planning permission, to convert 9 Elgin Road into offices, like so many other houses on the road.
But the trend recently in these large period houses has been in the opposite direction, to convert offices back into houses, although given the size of this house and its location, there would also be the potential to hive off some of the property – probably the basement – and convert it into medical rooms or similar and live upstairs.
