When the owners of Merlyn, a substantial semi-detached house on 0.4 of an acre at No 4 Sydney Parade Avenue in Sandymount bought it 23 years ago, they did a considerable amount of renovation work before they could even think of extending.
They did that later, adding a small sunroom and enlarging the galley kitchen so that now the five-bedroom Edwardian redbrick has 316sq m (3,400sq ft) of accommodation over three floors. Merlyn is for sale through Sherry FitzGerald for € 3.25m. Renovation The vast, beautifully landscaped back garden will be a prime attraction for buyers – with the agents suggesting that new owners who want to go all-out in terms of renovation may look to the strip of garden to the side as a way of making the house double-fronted.
As is common in houses of the period, there is an outer and an inner hall. The handsome front entrance – with solid timber double doors – opens into an “outer” hall with a cloakroom. Another door opens into the inner hall with its double ceiling roses and impressive oak staircase. Two interconnecting reception rooms span the front of the house and there is a further, more informal reception room to the rear, looking over the garden.
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A sunroom was added at the back in 1997 and the kitchen breakfast room extended in 2005 to add a small family room. Upstairs on the first floor, a bedroom was converted into an en suite for the very spacious main bedroom and there are two further double bedrooms and a family bathroom on this floor. On up again at attic level, in typical Edwardian fashion, there are two more bedrooms with dormer windows and a small attic room with roof lights. It’s likely that even if the buyers don’t embark on a massive building programme in this already very large, comfortable family home, they will rethink the kitchen area to give it more space for dining and to give it views of that extraordinary westerly garden. They will also redecorate and generally update.
The house is set back from the busy road behind mature hedging with parking for several cars to the front.
