A substantial villa-style four bedroom Victorian house at Grove Avenue in Blackrock is to be auctioned by Lisney on March 14th. The pre-auction guide for St Judes, 1 Grove Avenue is excess £650,000 (€825,000). Grove Avenue is located off Mount Merrion Avenue, close to the centre of Blackrock and convenient to a number of primary and second-level schools. While the house backs on to the apartment complex The Elms, surrounding greenery protects the house from being overlooked.
The present owners have lived here since 1920 and the house is very much in original condition, with many of the extravagant features of the early Victorian era, including tall sash windows with beautiful old glass intact. The Regency-style property is singlestorey over basement to the front, rising to two storeys at the back. There is a short flight of granite steps to the front door and the garden level is well above ground level and extremely bright. Rockeries, Virginia creeper and a magnificent spreading magnolia tree adorn the front garden. Inside, the rooms are cosy and wellproportioned, with typical Victorian high ceilings and cornicing. Original sash windows and shutters are mostly in good working order. To the right off the hall is a nicely-proportioned sittingroom looking out on the magnolia tree in the front garden.
A black marble mantelpiece has a fitted gas coal-effect stove. The diningroom opposite has an open cast-iron fireplace and a sash window also overlooking the front.
Up a short flight of stairs there are two double bedrooms with period fireplaces and a quaint bathroom which could easily be used as an en suite for one of the bedrooms. Shaker-style white-painted floorboards are an unusual touch which works well.
On the lower hall return, there is a cosy, informal sittingroom with a castiron fireplace fitted with a gas stove and a third bedroom which also has a fireplace. French doors open from here to the back garden.
The garden level has an atmospheric old-fashioned kitchen with original red tiles and a Raeburn stove which heats two floors of the house. Off this, a flagged lobby opens to a big utility room with quarry-tiled floor and plenty of cupboards.
A double bedroom on this level overlooks the front and there is also a useful shower room. This part of the house has potential as a spacious kitchen/everyday living area which would become the hub of the house. There are plans to convert the large attached store room off the lobby to additional accommodation if necessary. This has doors to both front and back of the house. The 80-ft-long, east-facing back garden is walled and lawned, with Cox's apple, pear and plum trees, herbaceous borders and a timber shed.
