Macroom home is a world-class conversion

The vendors of this mid-Cork farmhouse conversion are world-travellers who brought back more than souvenirs from their travels abroad....they even brought back stone for their renovtations, along with some lofty ideas for their homefront.

Macroom, Co Cork €225,000

Sq m 150 (1,600 sq ft)

Bedrooms: 3 plus 1

Bathrooms: 1

Hailing from Australia, the couple work in Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs). He’s a trained stone mason, currently with National Geographic, while she is in South America on farm-based family relief projects, and he also previously worked in construction in the Middle East, building mansions: that latter avenue may well have been the source of much of the portland stone and marbles brought all the way to Rahoona West, near Macroom in Cork for this most unusual of make-overs.

The couple opened up the full interior height of much of their rural purchase, a long, low farmhouse (plus old adjoining famine cottage) on 1.2 acres, by the foot of Mullaghganish near Ballymakeera.

This almost medieval hall proportioned room, split level, is now floored in travertine marble, and the owners used fine-finished portland stone for a full height chimney breast in the recreated space.

The same stone is used in an archway into the kitchen, and for the stairs to the master bedroom, in a complete luxe contrast to the exposed field stone the farmhouse was first built of, now whitewashed internally, and the room has the regular pock-marks left from where the old upstairs floor joints were supported.

There’s even more of a stone contrast in the main bathroom, with polished Jura stone, complete with shell fossils in the wall and floor tiles, and polished stone sink, while the double-head shower area is framed in rough field sandstone: it’s quite a contrast.

Travertine surfaces again in the kitchen floor, and units have granite tops.

VERDICT: Tom Heffernan of Heffernan Estates guides at €225,000 and bills it as an escape from reality, “a truly magical property,alongside national heri tage woodland and within easy reach of Ballyvourney village, Macroom, Cork and Killarney.