Great blend of ancient and new on the Wild Atlantic Way

Trish Dromey admires a thoroughly modern house which has been built around a restored centuries-old cottage.

Medieval monks came to Ballinskelligs in search of isolation, but the purchaser of this contemporary grass-topped property is more likely to come for the spectacular edge-of-the-Atlantic setting and scenery.

Built in the mid 1990s around a 200-year-old cottage and to the highest standards of energy saving techniques available at the time, it’s a highly individual residence which featured in a number of interior magazines and also in the RTÉ series, About the House.

Clad on the outside with local stone, it looks from above like a collection of dwellings. But on the inside is a stylish four-bed home with vaulted ceilings, huge windows, and 2,900 sq ft of mostly open plan space.

Originally called Solar House, it’s been renamed Sean Mike’s by the current owner, a German who moved to Ballinskelligs from Dublin in the late 1990s.

Sean Mike, she explains was the original owner of the thick stone walled cottage, which has survived on the inside of the new property as a bedroom.

Designed by Tralee architect Michael Williams — who also created a turreted home for Cranberries singer Dolores O’Riordan in Dún Chaoin in the early 1990s — the property has a curved section of grass-topped roof, a little like that of the nearby Skelligs Interpretative Centre. This helps it blend in to the landscape and also provides insulation.

“We keep a little Flymo to give it a cut occasionally — just to keep it looking neat,” says the owner, who once tried unsuccessfully to plant wildflowers on it.

Designed as a summer home for a Dublin couple, the house had solar panels but no connection to the grid when she bought it.

“It took almost a year to get electricity,” she says, adding that poles were put up across nearby farmland to bring it.

She spent a few years redecorating, upgrading, and making it suitable as an all-year-round residence, and started to gradually replace the timber windows which aren’t suited to the local climate.

Quite a lot of work has also gone in to taming the three quarters of an acre site, which wasn’t landscaped when she bought it.

“The locals told us it was too high up for a garden,” she says, happy to have proved them wrong by creating terraced areas around the house with gravel paths, seating and an abundance of colourful hydrangea bushes.

Although the appearance of the property is stylish and striking, the key attraction for its owner was the setting and the views.

“From the front you are looking down on Ballinskelligs Bay and across to Horse Island — the landscape is breathtaking,” she says.

The best viewing points are the two huge windows at the front — one belonging to a large studio/gym and the other to a 1,000 sq ft open plan kitchen/dining living room with 20ft high ceilings.

The kitchen section at the rear has modern cream units with marble countertops and an Aga, while the living area with its huge shuttered window is at the front.

Connecting the living area to the large studio/music room at one end of the house is a 26 foot long wall with six sliding doors which open to connect the two rooms and create a truly huge room — perfect for entertaining any number of guests.

At the other side of the dining area are the thick stone walls of the original cottage which has been turned into a bedroom.

To the rear there’s a bathroom with a free-standing Victorian style bath and a shower as well as a utility area and a guest bathroom. A contemporary open staircase leads up to a mezzanine bedroom located above the kitchen, underneath the grass roof. It has a skylight and three narrow windows with views of cattle grazing in nearby fields.

At one side of the property there’s a section, which is connected to the house but can also be used as a self, contained guest cottage. It has an open plan kitchen sitting room with a stove and fitted units as well as an en suite bedroom.

To the front and sides there are terraced gardens planted with hydrangea, daisies, and montbretia — all plants which thrive in the Ballinskelligs climate.

“You get the morning sun at the front and the evening sun at the side,” says the owner, who added a comfortable hammock and created a sheltered nook which looks like a good spot to sit and sip a gin and tonic. To the rear she planted hundreds of trees and created a small wildlife shelter.

Located 2km two kilometres from Ballinskelligs and 16km from Cahirciveen, Sean Mikes is on the market with Kerry Atlantic Homes Edmond O’Donoghue auctioneers who are guiding it at €975,000.

The attractions of the area include the spectacular setting and the Skellig Rock which attracted first the monks and then the makers of the Star Wars movies and has now become world famous.

The house combines character, style and architectural ingenuity and it has amazing views, says auctioneer Catherine O’Donoghue who expects international as well as Irish interest. She said that because of Ballinskelligs’ current popularity, a new owner wouldn’t have any difficulty renting out the self-contained cottage.

Verdict: Architecturally interesting and wonderfully scenic.

Ballinskelligs, Co Kerry

€975,000

Size: 269 Sq m (2,900 sq ft)

Bedrooms: 4

Bathrooms: 3

BER: C1