On the waterfront

LEEHOLME, on the Sunday’s Well road, is so well hidden by its boundary wall that you have to be invited inside before you get an impression of the property.

It's one of a number of houses on the western end of the road which are unidentifiable from the front.

Take a stroll along the Mardyke side of the river Lee, however, and you get some idea why these are among the more desirable homes in Cork city.

While the southern capital may lack a stockbroker belt, this end of town makes up for the deficit with a fair sprinkling of the legal and medical profession in one location.

A semi-detached property dating from the late 1800s, the house has been in the same family for five generations. In fact, this four-bedroomed property was a pied-a-terre for its merchant family owners, whose main abode was Windsor on the Rochestown Road, now the Rochestown Park Hotel.

It's rare for one of these riverbank properties to be for sale at all, but this month, two are on the market.

Hazlehurst, a three-storey period property, also on the river, is for sale at around 1.25 million through Woodwards.

Leeholme has been given a guide price of €850,000 by estate agent Andrew Moore, who is taking it to auction on December 2.

Sale by auction means that all inspections and engineering reports must be completed before the sale date (in this case, December 2) and protracted private treaty negotiations are eliminated. In simple terms, buyers must show the colour of their money or retreat gracefully.

In the present market, this method can realise results well in excess of the guide price and in the case of a rare property like Leeholme, the eventual sale price is hard to call.

However, the agent will usually agree a reserve with his client before the auction begins and can withdraw the property from sale if it doesn't reach that level.

That's hardly likely here: a trophy property like Leeholme should be scooped up by the last of the million-euro buyers who haven't committed yet this year.

On cursory inspection, this house is in good condition and has a level and manageable garden with its own mooring. From here, one member of the family used to boat down to Sunday's Well Tennis and Boating Club for a G&T or two, and row back.

The weir is a little tricky, but with an eye to water levels it's still possible to use the river, rather than the road. It's also a much more pleasant experience, say the vendors, who describe living on the river like this as a little bit of a Wind in the Willows existence.

The house's main focus is the water, but the entrance is off the wide end of Sunday's Well road with students' parking and leads on to the second floor, where there are four bedrooms and a bathroom.

There are two staircases here, one for servants and the second leading onto Leeholme's two impressive reception rooms, a strong selling point for buyers at this level.

The kitchen/pantry and a range of ancillary rooms are to the east of the house and, here, there's plenty of space for an new addition, which should also be a good selling point.

Warm and inviting, Leeholme has all the feeling of a long standing family home lucky the new family who gets to live there.