Elevated, immaculate and very impressive

Tommy Barker extols the virtues of a period home whose quality is way ahead of many modern houses.

IT’S hard to find fault with this Herbert Park house, a lofty Cork home just a downhill slalom to the city centre via Gardiner’s Hill, St Luke’s Cross and Summerhill north or St Patrick’s Hill.

The large period, pristine Edwardian has gardens as smart as the interior, the family home has buckets of space inside and out, and the condition is immaculate. In short, it is a home worth climbing the hills for, crossing to river to reach, or switching cities for.

Listed with a €975,000 price guide via Hamilton Osborne King, it will appeal to the cohorts of 2006 house hunters who have €1 million-plus to spend on a trading up home. In quality terms it knocks the socks off many southside Cork homes which will make €1 million or more this year simply because of shortage of supply.

Herbert Park has always been a prized address, and even through there’s only a half dozen of these Sam Hill-built, Edwardian semis, they sell to appreciative buyers. There’s been a turnover of ownership of most of them now in the past decade, and each has been improved upon on purchase.

That was the case when No 5’s owners took it on in 1978, and the house shows all the signs of love and care.

The gardens were worked on and effectively turned over in 1988, and were given what appears to be a low-maintenance treatment with lawns replaced by gravel and hard landscaping, but in fact there’s plenty here to keep the most avid gardener interested and challenged ... it just doesn’t have grass.

Packed with eye-catching features, it has raised organic beds, Liscannor stone paving, sculptures, water features, lighting, greenhouse and tended herb and veg sections. Planting includes Cornelian cherry, ornamental grasses, apple and quince trees, and there’s also a capacious garage with side access.

But let’s not overlook the house, which is south-facing, aesthetically and architecturally spot-on.

In its current layout it has four bedrooms over the top two floors, but as the first floor is home to a very large sitting room, this could equally be made into a bedroom suite. It has a fireplace, with gas insert, and the deep bay window yields views up the Lee Valley to County Hall. This level also has an ensuite master bedroom, and a fine family bathroom with deep blue-hued bath. The top floor has three, double sized rooms, one with gable windows.

The ground floor has a hall with original tiled floor, polished for generations, family sitting room, formal dining room opening to the kitchen behind, kitchen/breakfast room with original features, tiling and some more recent Spanish chestnut units, and a rear annexe with guest WC, shower room, pantry and lots of circulation space, so extension is a possibility.