A family house standing on just over a third of an acre in Dublin 6 is a rare thing and what it gives 30 St Kevin’s Park is a vast southwest-facing back garden that’s not overlooked.

It also sets the Edwardian redbrick well back from the road, which is a quiet cul-de-sac in Dartry. It’s for auction on February 25th by Lisney with an AMV of €3 million.

The most recent sale on this road was in September when this house’s neighbour, number 31, sold for €1.97 million. Before that, in July number 49 sold for €2.05 million.

They, though, were semi-detached. St Kevin’s Park is lined with redbricks of different styles and most are semi-detached. The home currently for sale is one of a handful of detached houses.

The current owner moved in 21 years ago when the house had already been enlarged with the addition of a two-storey extension to the side. It brought the size up to 420sq m (4,520sq ft) and gave it a bright kitchen to the rear and two extra rooms upstairs.

Typical Edwardian house

The house is typically Edwardian – solid, spacious, with none of the decorative period details you find in Victorian houses – built in the early 1900s for the emerging Irish professional classes who wanted an impressive but easy-to-manage house without the inconvenience of a basement level.

There are three reception rooms with the smaller one, on the right-hand side of the hall, used by this family as a home office.
The original kitchen was fitted out as a workshop when the owner relocated it to the large room looking out onto the back garden in the new extension. That was 20 years ago: since then the kitchen, which opens into a small conservatory, has been updated.

Optional house changes

Upstairs there are five bedrooms, three with en suites and a family bathroom. One of those bedrooms, the one in the side extension, was fitted out for the teenage daughter of the house and has its own small sitting room and kitchenette.

It’s likely that new owners will make some changes – updating the bathroom and en suites; also possibly rethinking the extension to the side and building a larger, mostly glazed (to greater appreciate the garden) eat-in kitchen at the back. It’s unlikely they will leave the workshop as is and will perhaps redecorate it as a playroom or an au pair’s room – this is a house that will be bought by a family trading up.

As well as parking for several cars out front there is a detached garage.

The rear garden backs onto the grounds of St Luke’s Hospital and the photograph of it shown here was taken when it was in full bloom in the summer (a tip for prospective house sellers – few gardens look their best in the winter) and shows buyers what they might expect in the spring when the current owner’s extensive planting comes to life.

View the Irish Times article HERE