Traditional meets contemporary in this beautiful family home which is for sale in sought-after Edinburgh suburb

Traditional and contemporary, inside and out, this city house has the best of both worlds, finds Kirsty McLuckie

The house at 2 Murrayfield Avenue will tick an awful lot of boxes for buyers with the appropriate budget.

The large Victorian house is over three levels and is an end of terrace, so it has a good-sized outside space for a city property.

Picture: Savills

The more traditional part is a magnificent, renovated building with a range of fine period features, set in beautifully proportioned rooms with the feel and formality of classic Victoriana.

Walk through to the back of the house however and a striking contemporary extension joins the modern kitchen, a spacious study lined with bookshelves and into a sun-filled family room.

Picture: Savills

One wall is made up of glazed doors which open up completely to the terrace from where steps lead down to the garden.

When property experts talk about creating a flow through open-plan spaces, enhancing the old with the new and connecting the inside with the outside of a house, this is what they mean.

Ben Fox of Savills says: “You’ve got beautiful original features coupled with amazing modern family living space and open-plan arrangements with the kitchen flowing into the study and the living room at the back.

“The house has all the contemporary elements that families crave, but with the traditional elements that buyers in Edinburgh are really looking for.”

Picture: Savills

One of the stand-out features of the older part of the house is the staircase which is of the original stone and dominates the entrance hall with a fine carved dark wood balustrade lit from a cupola above.

The extension, which encompasses an existing stone-built room on the back of the house but extends much further was completed within the last five years.

Picture: Savills

Upstairs, what was a maid’s bedroom has been transformed into an ensuite bathroom off the master bedroom.

Picture: Savills

The house is large, with six bedrooms over the upper two floors, four of them with ensuites, a ground-floor dining room and a first-floor drawing room, both with bay windows, plus a spacious dining kitchen and the study, even before you get to the additional family room, but Fox says: “I don’t think the size puts people off. It is an absolute positive for a growing family.

Picture: Savills

“If you have three or four children, everyone can have their own space, for reading, working or kids playing. It is a really flexible house.”

Murrayfield Avenue is made up of a row of similar Victorian houses, most of which are still whole rather than being split.

Picture: Savills

Features in the traditional part of the house include working shutters, cornicing, stripped wood floors, feature fireplaces and working fires.

The study links the dining kitchen with the family room that opens up to the outside.

Picture: Savills

Fox says: “The design works well for the owners, you are able to work, cook and keep and eye on the children playing outside and so the whole living area flows.”

The garden is generous and has been laid out to be practical, with terracing, borders and lawns.

Picture: Savills

The other advantage the house has is its price bracket. The market at this level is buoyant, says Fox, with new inquiries to Savills in the £1 million plus range up by about 25 per cent, year on year.

He says: “At this level the market has been fundamentally undersupplied, so there is pent-up demand between a million and one and a half million pounds because there is so little available.”

Picture: Savills

So far inquiries about the house have come from local interest, throughout the UK, and people from far afield such as the United States.

Fox says it is particularly attractive to those moving from London.

Picture: Savills

“Certainly if you compare what is available in a similar suburb, somewhere close to the West End and handy for excellent schools for example, you are probably looking at somewhere like Fulham where a similar sized property would cost at least three or four million pounds.”

Picture: Savills

City living doesn’t get much better than this, according to Fox.

Picture: Savills

He says: “ Living in a nice Victorian house but getting the flow of a real family space is rare. It is a house that you can move straight into without having to go through the pain of a complicated project.

“On fine days you can open up the entire wall and live your life inside and outside.”

Picture: Savills

2 Murrayfield Avenue is on the market for offers over £1.25 million with Savills.