Number 39 Sandycove Road is in a terrace of 10 similar, double-fronted houses built in the 1830s. It last changed hands 35 years ago when the current owners bought it and when it was, as many other houses in the terrace at the time were, in flats. They turned the four-bedroom house into a family home, restoring the original layout and reinstating a staircase down to the basement level. They are now downsizing – the three-storey-over-basement house has 268sq m (2,885sq ft), so it’s large – and DNG are handling the sale with an asking price of €1.2 million.
Early Victorian plans often copy the earlier, symmetrical Georgian styles, and this house has a simple layout. At hall level, it is one room deep with a large diningroom to the left and a livingroom to the right. Each has its original fireplace and a tall window at either end of the room. The windows were replaced in recent years with timber sashes to the front (it’s a protected structure and that is typically a condition) and the owners put in pvc replacement windows at the back. A nice original feature is the granite flight of steps that leads down from hall level to the back garden which also is walled with granite.
Upstairs there are four bedrooms, three doubles (one with an ensuite) and one single and there are glimpses of the sea from the two back bedrooms. The family bathroom is in the return. Down at basement level the eat-in kitchen is on one side of the hall, with two smaller rooms on the other.
New owners will almost certainly embark on a programme of renovation that will include a new kitchen and bathrooms as well as general updating and may also explore the possibility of extending at the rear.
There is vehicular access at the rear but number 39’s garage was sold off at some stage and so all that remains with the house is a space to park a car at the end of the long mature garden. The owners have, however, got planning permission for a drive-in at the front – and off- street parking would seem to be a must in this busy seaside neighbourhood.
