A large Victorian house in Blackrock, Co Dublin, home for the last 50 years to an order of Irish missionary sisters, is to be sold at auction on November 19th.
Built in the late 19th century, the large detached double-fronted redbrick on 0.65 acres, which went on the market six months ago, has an AMV of €2.5 million. But a buyer will need a budget in the region of €2 million to completely renovate the house and “turn it into something special” that could be worth €5 million, says Stephen Day of Lisney Sotheby’s International Realty.
The Holy Rosary Convent at 23 Cross Avenue, Blackrock, Co Dublin, a 500sq m (5,382sq ft) detached two-storey-over-garden-level house, was the headquarters of the Missionary Sisters of the Holy Rosary, a congregation founded in Cavan in 1924. Most of the Sisters who lived there have returned to Killeshandra, Co Cavan, after celebrating their centenary last year, although some continue to live and work in other houses in Dublin.
The house on the corner of Cross Avenue and Booterstown Avenue was built on a grand scale, with granite steps sweeping up to a front door with a pillared entrance. Period details – rich cornicing and coving, centre roses, large marble fireplaces – in the front hall and three large reception rooms on the ground floor are largely intact. However, to accommodate members of the congregation, a large number of small rooms – offices, bedrooms – were created in the basement and on the first floor. The partitions erected at the time left much of the original structure – ceiling coving, for example – intact and could possibly be relatively easily removed.
Modernising a listed building of this sort will be a big undertaking and to date, most interest has come from people looking at different possibilities for its future use, says Day. With planning permission, a new owner might build in the side garden, or perhaps turn the house into a B&B. Another suggestion is that it could be turned into three or four apartments, but these would have to meet modern fire safety regulations – not easy in a listed building. Or it could be a single family home.
A complete renovation would involve, among other things, rewiring, replumbing and reroofing the house as well as repointing its redbrick exterior, Day says. New owners might also seek planning permission to move the entrance from the junction of Cross Avenue and Booterstown Avenue to Cross Avenue.
The front hall of 23 Cross Avenue beyond the tiled front porch has rich cornicing, and the very tall arched window on the landing can be seen from the bottom of the stairs. You can glimpse views of the sea through trees from the window. Cross Avenue, which links Mount Merrion Avenue to Booterstown Avenue, was a formal drive on the Fitzwilliam estate, which ran from Merrion House on what’s now the N11 at Stillorgan down to the sea. The original staircase at the top of the house leads to a small pretty curved balcony.
Two large interconnecting reception rooms on the right of the front hall, and another room on the left, have rich ceiling cornicing and coving, centre roses and large marble fireplaces. Both large front rooms have tall, deep bay windows; the drawingroom on the right of the front hall has a sash window at the side and wide double doors connecting to the reception room at the back of the house, where another tall deep bay window looks over the back, into the garden of a house on Booterstown Avenue and a very large garden at the side.
There are multiple rooms in the basement, including two bedrooms, a kitchen and a sacristy with a tabernacle; for now, this is still the house of a religious order. Upstairs there are 11 bedrooms.
Sister Angèle Nkamsi, originally from Cameroon, lived in the house for 11 years before moving to another home in Dublin. The sisters enjoyed the location and “the beautiful people in the local parish of the Assumption” in Booterstown, she says.
The house sits on 0.65 acres, with most of the large garden to the right of the back of the house, and a rectangle of lawn directly behind the house. The large side lawn is surrounded by very mature trees and bushes between stone walls. A very tall conifer stands in the centre of circular paved parking area at the front of the house between two large lawns.
Until the 2008 property crash, sales of houses in Dublin at public auction, now rare, were commonplace. But auction sales are slowly making a comeback, Day says: “It’s a transparent way to sell ... The public likes the certainty.”
Lisney has sold seven houses this year either at or after auction. They included gardener Helen Dillon’s house, Dun Muire in Monkstown, Co Dublin, which sold for €2.925 million, €1 million over the AMV of €1.95 million, in October 2024. Lisney also sold 3 Seaview Terrace in Donnybrook at auction in August 2025 for €2.65 million, just over the AMV of €2.5 million.
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Summerville, 21 Cross Avenue, the pretty pink house next door, which went for sale through Sherry FitzGerald in March this year with an asking price of €5 million, is now listed at €3.95 million.
