Saturday, October 22, 2011
This Kerry property mixes local materials and tasteful imports to create an impressive home in a lovely location, writes Tommy Barker
A COUPLE of Kerry family generations steeped in the building business have come to the fore in the case of Behy Valley. Driven on by a women developer with a passionate eye for detail, the scheme of just five contemporary-styled houses is on the edge of super-scenic seaside Glenbeigh, a couple of miles from Rossbeigh beach.
Across the valley is wooded Curra mountain, in between runs the Behy river emptying Coomasaharn lake into Dingle Bay, and all around is tranquillity. This is not your standard, speculative holiday home scheme.
Now, the showhouse comes up for sale on the back a surprising run of successful holiday/second home sales in Ballinskelligs. Auctioneers for Glenbeigh’s Behy Valley, Sherry FitzGerald Stephenson Crean, had advertised eight holiday homes in Sunny Beach Ballinskelligs (on the same Iveragh peninsula) in these pages in June, and all are sold — very much against the run of the current depressed market for holiday homes: prices there averaged€155,000, and buyers came from Dublin, Cork and Kerry.
Now, a bit dearer but way further up the desirability scale is Behy Valley, a kilometre from Glenbeigh, and where No 5, done to city showhouse standards, is on offer for €265,000 with agents SFSC.
That’s for a fully finished and furnished detached c 2,000 sq ft two-storey home, on a site of 0.29 of an acre, superbly built and finished by builder Brendan Teahan. His client was his sister Bernadette Teahan, and the siblings’ father, the late Paddy Teahan, was also a highly regarded builder in the county in his day. Behy Valley was a project they clearly took in their stride.
"I guess I myself have some of my father’s genes too as I have a grá for buildings and for building models and projects/programs in my work life," says Bernadette.
She came up with the house design and interior look from places she had seen when working in New York and which she reckoned would work for her site.
Bernadette had an architect do up some drawings, and then progressed to the build with the back-up of local engineer Frank Curran, who worked well with her brother Brendan. At the finishing stages, their sister Marjorie Griffin came on board for perfectionist painting, inside and out.
Internally, the two-storey house is fairly open plan, flooded with light, which bounces off the red oak flooring and Spanish and Italian glazed porcelain tiling. There’s also a glazed and polished white oak stairs designed by Bernadette, and made by Carrolls of Killarney.
In keeping with the modern look, but with the oldest of materials, Bernadette used Valentia slate for the feature stone finishes inside and out, with mason Gary Sheahan skilfully mixing cut and some rough stone for best contrast effect.
Here, the completed kitchen is high-gloss with granite tops, lighting is recessed with some feature lamps, and the main living space is open plan off the kitchen, with a dining room down a step or two. This space could be covered in for a fourth bedroom if required.
Upstairs has three carpeted bedrooms, two of them en suite, plus main family bathroom, and good use is made of mirrors.
Other rooms include a utility, and a sun-room, and the house has several break-out small sections plus broad sweeps of well-placed windows to take away any block-bungalow look. Build materials include painted render, slate roofs, oak-effect pvc glazing and fascias, and that Valentia stone, locally sourced and with consequently low air-miles.
Bernadette says she deliberately tried to source as much stuff as she could locally (saving that Spanish and Italian porcelain), and that Valentia proximity also paid dividends in the centrepiece chimney-breast.
VERDICT: Five major towns, seven golf courses, three major fishing lakes and their rivers, are within an hour’s drive of this ‘centre of Kerry’ retreat, as are the Macgillycuddy Reeks, Carrantuohill, angling and sailing harbours and an international airport.
Location: Glenbeigh, Kerry
Price: €265,000
Size: 185 sq m (2,000 sq ft)
Bedrooms: 3
BER rating: Pending
Best feature: Contemporary style at home in country setting
SOURCE BOOK
Estate agents: Sherry FitzGerald Stephenson Crean, Tralee. 066-7180822.
Builder: Brendan Teahan Construction, Glenbeigh, Co Kerry. 066-7131522.
Engineer: Frank Curran, Cahirciveen, Co. Kerry. 066-9481719.
Lighting: HomeBase, Deer Park, Killarney.
Builders Providers: MD O’Sheas, Killarney and Boyle’s, Killorglin.
Furniture: Square Deal, Washington Street, Cork; and Object, Newcastlewest, Limerick.
Stairs: O’Carroll Engineering/Signature Stairs Tiernaboul Ind Est, Killarney. 064-6632055
© Examiner Publications (Cork) Limited, City Quarter, Lapps Quay, Cork. Registered in Ireland: 73385.
