A large house with one of Rathgar's most desirable addresses makes a fine family home near the city, writes Bernice Harrison

A substantial family home at 72 Grosvenor Road, one of Rathgar's most popular roads, is for auction through Sherry FitzGerald on March 16th with a guide of €2.7 million.

At 335 sq m (3,606 sq ft) it really is a large house with six bedrooms, three gracious reception rooms and a small self-contained studio apartment to one side. For large, young families a further attraction is going to be the 33-metre back garden which will also meet the approval of keen gardeners, as its meticulous planting and tending by its owner has made it a six-times winner of the Rathgar Horticultural Society Perpetual Trophy.

The detached house is well back from the road with around 20 metres of garden divided into a grassy area as well as a cobble-locked car-parking area with room for at least six cars.

The current owners have lived here for 14 years. When they bought, they had recently moved to Ireland and didn't have much of an idea about location. Their big concern was good schools for their children, proximity to the city centre and a decent choice of good-sized houses. Even locals familiar with the city's suburbs would still earmark Rathgar as an upmarket southside suburb that fits that bill.

The roads are mostly lined with Victorian redbricks built for the burgeoning professional classes and the area quickly got a reputation for solid respectability and indeed a certain superior tone. One of variety legend's Jack Cruise's most popular songs 40 years ago was I'm so glad to be living in Rathgar, which hilariously sent up the genteel pretensions of the locals. The area never became a "flatland" in the same way as neighbouring Rathmines and even those many Rathgar houses that were divided are being slowly brought back to single family use.

When the current owners bought this house it was divided into offices but they have refurbished it in a traditional style so that no trace of that commercial usage remains. Four of the bedrooms are doubles with en suites, the fifth bedroom is another large double with the sixth being a very small single to the front with the attractive feature of the twin narrow, arched windows. In similar houses, owners when refurbishing tend to use this room to create either a dressing room or a luxurious en suite bathroom.

As well as all the four en suites there is a family bathroom in the first floor return. With its large cast-iron fireplace it could be a very attractive period-style bathroom but at the moment it is a slightly strange shape due to the adjoining oversized hotpress and its fittings are on the old-fashioned side.

Downstairs to the left of the hall is the first of the three reception rooms and it is large and attractively decorated making the most of its original Victorian features.

On the other side of the hall are two reception rooms, a formal livingroom to the front connecting via the original folding doors to the back diningroom. At the back of the house is the eat-in kitchen. In another house it would be fine but, in this price bracket, new owners will probably want to replace it with something more contemporary. They may also not appreciate the ancient wooden conservatory directly off it which is full of plants from floor-to-ceiling.

There is access to the studio apartment from the original wrought iron and wood door at the side of the house. A matching door at the other side of the house gives access to the back garden.