Victorian dream home

ONE of a Victorian terrace of six houses, No 2 Sydenham Terrace is done up to the nines.

The fully restored and lushly decorated period property in Monkstown in Cork has a €750,000 price guide: move it to Monkstown in Dublin and a house with similar attributes would make double that sum, €1.5 to €2 million, according to agents Hamilton Osborne King.

Cork’s Monkstown is seven miles from the city centre and this harbour and hillside terrace is a few hundred yards from the sea at Sand Quay.

Half a mile behind the house is Monkstown Golf Club, there’s a national school at the end of the mature-treed terrace’s lane and there’s a bus service as well, close to hand.

So, the location scores heavily, but the house (owned by interior designer Nuala Ryan and her husband Michael) with views across Cork harbour also comes out tops on just about all fronts, says Peter Cave of Hamilton Osborne King.

It’s a two-storey over semi-basement family home, laden with period trimmings, finely decorated.

It comes with three quite formal reception rooms done in Dulux heritage colours with cornicing and large timber and cast iron fireplaces in two of the linked rooms with huge old pine dividing doors.

There is a also a study and guest WC with shower at this mid-ships entry level, while the lower garden level has a modern maple kitchen with superb granite worktops and splashback, and there’s a family room off the kitchen space.

The top floor has four bedrooms with high ceilings, three have cast iron fireplaces and three rooms have great elevated, crow’s nest views to the harbour and passing vessels.

You could say that the front of the house is approached from behind, via a cul de sac lane and has a sheltered low-walled front garden and wall and appears two-storey from this aspect, while the back has the grander look with full three-storey facade and there’s a communal gravelled drive separating the houses from their six individual 100ft-long mature gardens.