Golden opportunity

THE sea never disappoints, even in these bleak New Year days when the tinsel has disappeared and the lights have gone out.

But the chance to buy a chunk of coastline in the Gold Coast of West Cork, might be just the thing to chase the blues away for mellow millionaires. Nothing like a good spend in January to cheer up the still dark days. That's if you've got in excess of €1.2 million or so.

Because, this will buy you a farm of land, almost 43 acres, with two beaches in one of the most beautiful parts of West Cork, at Ballyrisode, Schull.

The farm, (which is mostly rough grazing, but which won't count for the purposes of this sale), is just two miles from Schull, the main port for the sailing fraternity. It's also one of the buzziest villages in West Cork, with a discreet, but dense sprinkling of celebrities and well-to-dos in the immediate vicinity.

And, more importantly, there has been a recent benchmark set for a similar offering in the immediate area. Shambala, (a Sanskrit name meaning a place where man and animals live in harmony), also in Ballyrisode, went on the market in July of 2004 and has been sold for close to its asking price of €3 million by auctioneer, Charles McCarthy and joint agent, Dominic Daly.

The home of artist Terry Frost, the price tag caused a ripple in auctioneering circles at the time, but proved to be accurate enough when the house and 35 acres was signed and sealed just over a year later. And, in line with current patterns, the buyer was Irish, a Dublin-based businessman whose family fell in love with house and the location.

Shambala is a converted, three-bedroomed farmhouse, admittedly of 4,500 square feet, but crucially, it also had planning permission for a separate dwelling on part of its rocky, coastal lands. This could be seen as a precedent for an application on the present property, even though it comes with a derelict cottage. This is usually seen as an easement to planning permission for a restoration or rebuild, but that's now more difficult as the non-existence of a roof can be grounds for refusal. Shambala's new planning permission could give some hope value to buyers.

Paddy Murray of ERA Paddy Murray already has an offer in excess of a million, made as soon as the property hit the market just before Christmas.

And, this 43-acre farm with its sandy shoreline isn't likely to come around again too soon.This is high demand real estate in an area that's coming down with desirable properties

The main drawback for some may be the public access to the property's beaches but the lay of the land, with trees and rocky outcrops, provides a certain amount of privacy.

Paddy Murray is selling the property for its two owners, who have strong family ties to the area one of the vendors is local and the second resides in the US.