The only way is up for the new owner of this desirable home

THIRTY years old, and maybe now ready to grow up by another floor, is the Model Farm Road Cork home Shelton, up for sale with a €500,000-plus price guide.

Attractively 1960s in style, but built in 1972 to a design by architect Kevin O’Reilly, it has been in the same family’s caring hands since 1978.

It is flat-roofed, in the architectural style of the day, and has up to 2,000 sq ft of living accommodation, including three/four bedrooms, but new owners may be looking upwards at the chance of putting on an upper floor.

The private site of over a quarter of an acre site is set back off the main road via a length avenue, and has pristine gardens and mature hedges, plus a brick-faced double garage and glass house.

The house is bright, with large windows and shows the signs of diligent maintenance, but clearly new owners will want to modernise aspects as a minimum first step, and the scope for extension is clearly upwards, as high and as dramatic as a buyer’s budget and ambitions will allow.

Selling agents are Johnny O’Flynn and Peter O’Flynn of Colliers Jackson Stops, who says the location is first rate, in the western suburbs, by Mount Mercy School, the technology park and within a few minutes’ drive of two major hospitals, the Bon Secours and the CUH with major developments coming on stream at the Ballincollig old barracks site as a further draw.

Shelton has a mature brick exterior, with landscaping to the edges and even up the walls with colourful climbers, it has several sheltered patios, and windows are teak, some with aluminium sections.

The layout internally has the sleeping quarters over to one end, with two bedrooms opposite the main bathroom, and there are two linked bedrooms (an archway with curtain divides them) currently serving as a master bedroom, and there’s an en suite off one of these rooms: this en suite also has a door opening to the hall, which allows it to be used as a guest bathroom.

Reception rooms comprise a dining room and extra large 27’ by 13’ drawing room, with an end wall of painted brick and white marble fire heart, with gas stove fitted. The kitchen is 14’ by 9’, with older 1970s style units, and there a utility, walk in hot press and several built in storage areas.

The location and privacy will justify further investment, and the house can be upgraded before or after moving in, depending on a new occupant’s needs. Shelton has oil heating, an alarm and security lighting, all on a highly desirable site.