Secluded behind high stone walls and with gardens 70 years a-growing, the large family houses on Church Road, Ballybrack, are always worth checking out.
Birds Well is a detached four-bedroom house on Church Road, with all the chintzy comfort and appeal of a 1930s home and enough space to raise an army of children.
Sherry FitzGerald is asking for offers in the region of £795,000 (€1.09 million) by private treaty for the 2,210 sq ft house. With an acre of entrancing gardens, it is sure to inspire a flurry of interest, even at the end of the season. Immaculate flowering borders, a couple of ponds, beehives and a productive orchard are just the beginning of what's on offer.
The house is well-maintained and with just enough faded charm to impress. The current owners, family reared, are moving to smaller accommodation after forty years at Birds Well.
The downstairs rooms all interlink, creating a good flow of space for entertaining. A rose-papered sittingroom to the front has a mahogany and marble fireplace and a wide bay window facing west. Original French doors open to a conservatory large enough for a table and a couple of sofas.
Another door leads to the formal diningroom - lined with bookshelves and with an enclosed stove fireplace. The floor here is oak parquet.
Through again is a cosy breakfastroom with corner windows overlooking the side and back gardens. This room forms part of the kitchen, which has a fairly new oak floor and cream units. There is a useful walk-in pantry, and beyond this is a downstairs toilet.
Upstairs, there are two double bedrooms and two large singles, one of which fits twin beds with ease. Three of the bedrooms have fitted wardrobes and the main bedroom includes a full bathroom en suite.
An inner courtyard outside the kitchen door houses a couple ofstorage sheds and a door to the garage. Above the garage and accessed from the back gardenis a lofted studio which would make a great teenager's hideaway.
The gardens are very much the main attraction. Swathes of lawn are bounded by tall beech hedges and myriad species of trees and flowering shrubs.
There is a south-facing terrace off the conservatory crammed with climbers and filled pots. The two fir trees on the front lawn were grown from seeds brought back from Vienna by an aunt at the outset of the second World War.
The garden stretches back to an orchard and beyond to a bee sanctuary. Here, an old bathing hut surrounded by roses has been converted to a romantic gazebo. This was rescued from Killiney beach and used as a laboratory by the owner's grandfather, Richard Moss, who was the first State Pathologist.
One of the ponds by the Swiss-style woodshed has a paved sitting area.
