Dublin 4: €5.5mA Georgian house in Sandymount village has been given a thorough makeover. Property Editor Orna Mulcahyreports
Buying houses to do up and sell on has been a lucrative business over the last five years. Anyone with an eye for potential and a good line of credit could make a healthy profit in domestic speculation - giving a house Portuguese limestone flooring, a new kitchen and lots of Farrow & Ball paint and letting the property boom do the rest.
The game has gotten tougher now that house prices have stalled and supply has increased. However, the owners of 5 Claremont Road in Sandymount are confident they can achieve €5.5 million for the Georgian house which they bought a year ago, and have lavishly refurbished and extended.
Perfectly finished and ready to move into, the house is bang in the middle of Sandymount village, with shops, cafés, boutiques and pub a minute's walk away. It has a surprisingly large garden for its location, and there is valuable off-street parking for two or three cars in front.
It's for sale by private treaty through Bergins, a small, select agency specialising in top-end properties in Dublin 4. According to Geraldine Bergin, number 5 is likely to appeal to empty-nesters looking for a good-sized house that will take all their furniture, and have enough room to entertain the family. The accommodation is generous but not daunting. There is a fine double drawingroom, a separate sittingroom, a big, bright kitchen leading off to a utility room and a walk-in hotpress. Upstairs, there are four bedrooms, two en suite. There is also a large family bathroom on the return.
The house dates from the 1730s and was for many years home to a Ms Arnold who taught piano, and kept many cats. The owners decided on a radical overhaul, bringing the house back to its very bones, and starting over by widening the hall, raising door heights, pushing back the staircase and adding the large and airy kitchen that is now the most attractive room in the house.
Walls and ceilings were replastered and many period details added, not all of them correct but all highly decorative. The ceilings are trimmed with elaborate plasterwork and there are new marble fireplaces in the reception rooms which also have hardwood timber floors.
Honey coloured carpet flows up the stairs and into the bedrooms which are all decorated in quiet good taste. Original cast-iron fireplaces have been restored and polished.
Estate agents insist that there are still plenty of buyers out there for the right product and this house will certainly appeal to wealthy buyers who don't want to have to do a thing. Still, the market has tightened, and expensive houses are a harder sell than they were 12 months ago. In 2006, no less than 24 houses priced from €5 million to €14 million had sold by the end of May. This year, by contrast, just 10 properties have sold for over €5 million, the top price reached being €9.6 million.
