And it's that sparkle of romance combined with specific and imaginative ideas about colour, texture, shape and function that define the very special restoration and extension Mitchell, the owner of Little Bird film company, has carried out at his property on Dublin's finest square If any building sums up the best of the live-work ethic, this is it, a beautiful Georgian brickfronted house built in 1828 as a city home for the gentry which now stands transformed as a highly functional and very beautiful suite of offices.

In the space once used as stables at the back, a new 278sq m (3,000sq ft) fivestorey development of two fine duplex apartments . . . and a private cinema, no less . . . has been built, re-energising the old with the new.

And between the original house and the new mews building is a tropical wonderland of a garden designed by Bernard Hickie . . . exciting to walk through and get lost in its exotic scents and greenery, yet just as lovely to look down on from above.

What's so wonderful and rare about this property is that none of the contemporary changes introduced by Mitchell sacrifice the history of the house, yet all the modern additions, created with architect Shelley McNamara of Grafton Architects, are just as visually stunning and authentic as the older building.

Mitchell's company, Little Bird Productions, is now one of the most successful in Europe.

He has produced drama and documentaries for both cinema and television, including latest release, Bernard & Doris, starring Susan Sarandon.

Mitchell is selling his offices and Dublin home, because so much of Little Bird's business is now in South Africa. He has offices in Johannesburg and in London and will keep a smaller office in Dublin.

As a result, his property masterpiece, No 13 Merrion Square, is up for auction and is being marketed jointly by Wade Wise in HOK Residential and Michael Clarke in the investment division of Hamilton Osborne King. It goes to auction on 1 June with an AMV of 7.5m.

The auction is being 'premiered' next Wednesday with a private VIP viewing. The invitation list reads like a who's who of the country's rich and famous with names such as Bono, the Corrs, and Paul McGuinness among the glitterati asked to the champagne launch, along with top bankers with serious money and clients with even more who could be interested in buying.

It has to be said, this is no ordinary Georgian office building. It has been refurbished with a beauty, thoughtfulness and an individuality that puts it way ahead of most of what's around. This is a 'statement' property par excellence, and one that a host of today's wealthy developers, radio station owners or music magnates would clearly love to wear on their sleeves.

But Mitchell has put so much into both the old and the new buildings that it also needs little or no work to change it to any variety of uses.

As an investment, Michael Clarke, head of investment at Hamilton Osborne King says the income from the house, duplex apartments, cinema and car parking for six cars could easily reach 300,000, almost double the 169,000 currently earned from the various film-related businesses .

As a trophy home, a full working kitchen and bathrooms would have to be installed but any number of the rooms on the five floors in this 511sq m (5,500 sq ft) house could be used.

Alternatively, as Louise Kennedy does in her home on the other side of the square, some of the rooms could be used as offices or showrooms, while the upper levels . . .including an amazing attic suite with high, sloping ceilings, could be used as a private residence.

The tone of the main house is set as soon as you open the heavy panelled front door and walk into the deep grey hall with its portland stone floor and simple plasterwork around the arch and on the ceilings.

There are two interconnecting rooms at this level, each with huge floor-to-ceiling restored sash windows with shutters, marble fireplaces and wired for office use.

The first floor is currently laid out as a presidential style office suite with two large interconnecting rooms. Its deep red colour scheme is representative of the Georgian colour palette used throughout . . . deep blues, yellows, reds and greys which tone so beautifully with the old dyes of the hand-made oriental carpets which hang on all the walls throughout the house.

The second floor is set out in two further interconnecting rooms . . . this time the room to the front has an exquisite view across Merrion Square to the mountains beyond, while at the back is a smaller office which looks down on the garden.

Up a winding stair and the attic suite is the location for yet another interiors drama . . . a high sloping ceiling is almost dome-like above one of two very large rooms which could easily convert into a wonderful penthouse-style apartment.

The basement is again in stylish offices, with the new return coming into its own here in the form of a garden room which acts as a small kitchen.

The terrazzo floor, huge curving glass wall, rooflight and colour-washed cobaltblue wall is the signature for the transition from indoors to out, from old to new.

Outside Granite paving winds around to the exotic Hickie garden where banana trees, New Zealand tree ferns, Mexican Scarlet Flushed Angel's Trumpet, South African Cassonia and the hairy-barked telantrophora form a simply extraordinary tropical forest of a perfume garden in the heart of the city.

The cinema To get to the cinema, you must go underground . . . and out to the Denzille Lane entrance to the new block which includes the cinema itself, car park for six cars and the two apartments that cluster around a central atrium with walls painted in cobalt blue. The lines of this glass and cedar panelled building are enlivened by mosaic, glass and marble. But their streamlined simplicity are a contemporary echo of the unornamented Georgian terrace of Merrion Square to which they belong.

The cinema seats 30, has a state-of-theart 35mm projection screen, and a bar and reception area as well as a beautiful terrace onto the garden.

It is the country's only private cinema.

The apartments The two apartments are above the cinema, one used by Mitchell himself as his Dublin pied a terre. This is a miracle of space planning with a hall opening into the bright and simple oak-floored main livingroom, off which is the bedroom.

This is where those wardrobes the colour of Elizabeth Taylor's eyes are situated and the closets themselves provide the best storage you will probably ever see . . . accessed from both the bedroom and the hall.

From the bedroom, a carved sliding door opens in a beautiful en-suite bathroom with a large bath and walk-in shower.

A red Bulthaup upstairs kitchen is both lively and sophisticated, while a huge window over the stairwell pays homage to the big Georgian window over the staircase in the main house. A desk perched by the window with bookshelving behind it provides the sort of funky bespoke feeling that gives a home a real wow.

But in this second duplex, the real showstopper is the roof gardens . . . one to the north and the other, for entertaining, to the south. The 'kitchen garden' up here, again designed by Bernard Hickie, has everything from herbs to carrots and potatoes.

Walk across a glass 'bridge' underlit by shafts of blue light and you reach the south side of the roof garden. This spacious terrace overlooks the main tropical garden. It is the entertainment and leisure part of the garden, again planted with exotic species chosen by Hickie, and including its own irrigation system.

From top to bottom, back to front, No 13 Merrion Square is a property of bold strokes and confident elegance. It reflects a sensuous enjoyment of life's richness without ever being flashy and it's got buckets of personality.

Not a bad badge for a new owner to wear.