Built for bigger families

With no less than nine bedrooms, a detached house towards the eastern end of Broughty Ferry has room for the biggest family – or could make a B&B. Jack McKeown takes a closer look

Plenty of families complain of not having enough space. The Chatterjis do not. Professor Monojit Chatterji and his wife Anjun have no less than nine bedrooms to play with in their Broughty Ferry home.

St Helens, at 25 Dalhousie Road, is a detached villa constructed in 1930 and extensively added to over the years.

Spread across well over 300 square metres of living space on two floors are a lounge, family room, kitchen, dining room, utility, nine bedrooms – four of them en suite – and a library.

When the couple bought the house in 2001 it had been used as a bed and breakfast.

“We converted it back to a family home,” Anjun explains.

“Almost everything needed to be replaced. We’ve put in new windows, a new boiler, redecorated all but one of the bedrooms.

“And we put in a new staircase. When we arrived there was no stair, only a horrible lift that we had taken out.”

To the right of the entrance vestibule are two rooms, one with en suite shower, that are currently used as a homeopathy studio by Anjun.

“I’ve been a homeopathy practitioner for around 15 years,” she says. “Having these rooms is perfect. I have a treatment room which has its own little bathroom off it, then I have my office next door.

“It means clients can come in for treatment without ever having to step into the main part of the house.

“Getting an arrangement as good as this is going to be a challenge when we move on to our next property.”

The living room has a south facing bay window, as does the next-door master bedroom which has an en suite.

Also on the ground floor is a double bedroom lit by a large skylight window that has its own en suite.