Northumberland Avenue is one of those streets that gets more salubrious with every passing house sale. A one-way affair, leading away from the sea from Dún Laoghaire’s main street, it’s a quiet spot that is nevertheless a hop and a skip from the Dart, buses, shops, schools, restaurants, the Pavilion Theatre, the sea and so much more.
Number 23 is a double fronted single storey over basement and is, as the cliché goes, simply oozing with potential. Lisney is offering it for auction on February 19th, with a guide price of €600,000, but as the house is currently divided into flats: one upstairs with two bedrooms, and two at garden level, with a bedroom apiece, this is just the beginning of what the new owners will need to spend.
Marble fireplaces
The stairs, for example, need to be reinstated to connect the two parts of the house again, and as most people will agree, one big kitchen is so much more reasonable than three little ones . . .
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The price is at the upper end of what houses in this street have been selling for, with Number 39 going last August for €395,000. That house is slightly smaller than this one: 191sq m (2,056sq ft), compared to 202sq m (2,174sq ft); and it also needed a great deal of work as it had been laid out as offices.
Number 23 is also more elegant, potentially, and the upper floor has beautifully proportioned rooms, with marble fireplaces, deep shuttered sash windows, and a pair of concertina doors separating the living and dining rooms, so that these can be opened up to get light right through.
There is also a large back patio area which can be reached from the upper kitchen via a metal balcony and stairway. There are storage sheds, and a gate leads into a pedestrian back lane. There is also a hedged front garden, while parking is on street with a parking disc.
Judging by the whiff of Farrow and Ball and polished brass plates coming off other houses on the street, and the steadily climbing sense of kemptness, 23 Northumberland Road is ready and waiting for a family with taste, vision and resources to come and take it over.
What they’ll get, once the downstairs partitions are knocked through, and the staircase returned, will be a lovely home in a brilliant location. There’s plenty of space for four bedrooms, and maybe even an Aga as part of the kitchen makeover. It’s that kind of house.
