Get out on deck and enjoy the views

By Tommy Barker

But, guys, better not try it at this home.

Up for sale alongside a wooded valley just above Clonakilty town in West Cork is Revsuden, a strikingly conceived and superbly built large modern home being vacated by a Swedish woman and her property developer husband who made the lifestyle move out from Cork city two years ago.

They had the spark of inspiration to push out the literal and metaphorical boundaries just a whit, cantilevering their large wooden deck over the sloping valley to really give a vertigo-inducing view, sloping away down 60' or so to a small stream which in turn feeds in to the Feagle river a mile out from the town itself.

Unlike some tack-on suburban decks which are little more than a wooden pallet outside a patio door, this deck works superbly because its scale and setting, as the house site was chosen specially with the valley back-drop in mind.

Responsible for crafting this deck was local man Aidan Hennessy, whose late father was a well-respected builder in Clonakilty, and since this deck was put up, the two neighbouring houses on either side of this spot have hit the decks with Aidan in similar style.

Revsuden, named after a Swedish village, is numerically number 10 in a scheme of 12 house sites in the just-concluding exclusive low-density six-acre development Ard Alainn by the Fernhill Hotel and pitch and putt course.

This signature deck has it all: steps and sturdy rails, built-in seating and a round table, outdoor lighting, wired for sound from the main residence, landscaped planting all around, and then it pokes through the natural boundary of native ash and sycamore trees to hang over the stream as well, for a mood-music backdrop of tinkling stream and rusting leaves.

Despite the lofty setting, this deck is a pretty safe spot on the glenside, which is reassuringly short of being vertical and the owners' two young sons are adept at scrambling on the valley sides, with an adventure playground on their doorstep.

The stone-faced house, with five bedrooms, 3,200 sq ft of space, a detached equally stone-faced garage with storage/home office/gym/sauna/guest apartment options all in situ, is new on the market with agent Henry O'Leary, who also sold the 12 sites in this clearly up-market scheme and where quarry loads of stone went into the houses' make-up.

Revsuden has a price guide "in excess of €550,000," and confidently looks set to forge a new price record for a contemporary home in uber-chic Clonakilty.

Henry O'Leary says a house price record in the Redwood development nearby in the last few months was set at €460,000, and that was for a house on a smaller site, with 1,100 sq ft less of space, no decks and without much of the trimming seen here.

Size isn't everything either, and this place is not just big, it has been specified and finished to an exceptionally generous and high standard.

Three of the bedrooms are ensuite, with power showers, the heating is pressurised and super-efficient thanks to a very high level of insulation (the Swedes know all about this, and don't believe this country has mild winters.

The insulation is doubly handy, from heat to sound, because while one son is learning electric guitar, the other has a drum kit under active assault.

Glazing is double, in wood-effect PVC frames, the front door is panelled cedar, the sun room off the huge front-to-back kitchen/dining room is a passive heat draw, and lighting throughout is a mix of central lights, wall lights, recessed lighting and incidental lightingthe only difficulty might be in learning which switch does what.

Go with the motto 'Better to try a switch, any switch, than to curse the darkness'

Much of this house is wired for hi-fi sound, and the living quarters are varied: to the right are two reception rooms, with a glass-block screen between them, to the left is the kitchen and dining area and sun room.

Straight on through the welcoming hallway is a utility room done out to kitchen standards with a guest WC and shower off it, and as you walk around you realise how out-door living friendly this place is: apart from the hall door, you can access the gardens through the sun-room, through French doors in the dining area, via the utility room or through another set of double doors in the extra-large family room with an open fireplace opposite a sofa large enough for a whole family to share and which still doesn't look over-scale in this room.

Acclaimed paint effects specialist Geraldine O'Riordan and her sister Miriam, who run the Hand Painted Interiors company, did much of the interior decoration, ranging from subtle colour washes to fake stone blocks and trompe l'oeil swags and tails, and right throughout the house there's an air of calm (except for drum practice time) thanks to the pale colours and light coloured blinds.

Two of the four first floor bedrooms have their own ensuite bathrooms, and go up another floor to the attic level to really see what a master suite can be like.

Here, under the sloping roof and with proper stair access, is a retreat area open for the full width of the house, measuring 38' by 15', with five Velux windows for day time and recessed lighting for night time, one section at one end opens to a large walk-in wardrobe, the other is a large ensuite bathroom with a full size roll-top, cast-iron bath.

Despite this house's impressive 3,200 sq ft size, it is pretty maintenance-free on the outside.

The gardens are well-planted up, there are heavy cast iron period style standard lights dotted about and there are also electronic controlled access gates to no. 10's one-third of an acre site.

The last few houses here are now under construction for their owners (Henry O'Leary has another re-sale, no 8, with 2,300 sq ft of space and a €430,000 price tag) there's a communal green area "and after this it is unlikely there'll be another such low-density scheme in the urban district area as the move is on to higher densities in the town," comments Mr O'Leary.