Take the plunge

AHEAD of its time for the time, the depressed mid-1980s, and even still ahead of the posse is the Waterfall House, on the edge of the River Nanny in Navan, Co Meath.

It is a striking and uncompromising ecologically grounded home in a setting that has been through the mill: a structure has been on this waterfall bank footprint since the 18th century, first a cornmill, then a sawmill, now a house that is far from run of the mill.

Airline pilot Charlie Coughlan stumbled across the 11 acre site with a mill ruin on it in the early 1980s “and before I was halfway down the laneway I knew it was for me.”

It has elements of architect Frank Lloyd Wright’s celebrated Fallingwater House, superficially at least because of its setting. Architect responsible for this design was Paul Leech, an award-winning eco-architect with offices in Navan and Dublin: it has featured on several TV programmes and in print media and books like the Natural House Book.

At its core is a lofty stone chimney tower, which soaks up passive solar supplied heat by day and radiates it back out at night time.

The house itself is three-storey, with five levels thanks to mezzanines and the like, and has cantilevered terraces and a double height conservatory to soak up the rays.

“There’s a thermostat at the top of the conservatory which turns on a circulating fan when the temperature reaches 35 degrees, that’s the temperature of downtown Cairo in the middle of the day, and it reaches this level in March,” he says.

Similarly, the conservatory floor is another heat store, go to the utility room underneath and you can feel the heat radiating through, he adds.

The Waterfall House is not a huge home, in fact it has about 1,300 sq ft of living space, with three bedrooms, two reception rooms, kitchen and two conservatories as its main rooms. Its outdoor terraces are more living space, and while occupants are mindful of the danger to toddlers, older children use them as jump-boards to the water below in warm summer months when the level is dammed up enough.

Stone to build this true one-off house was picked up from another mill in Navan demolished in the 1980s, and was given away free to anyone who’d cart it away - a far cry now from the premium on this building product.

A second residence, the old miller’s house, known locally as Mollies House and part of this property package at Kentstown 30 miles from Dublin, was renovated only about two years ago, and has two bedrooms and a quaint feel.

“This unique place will appeal to the energy conscious at heart, and it is a spot where nature reigns supreme,” says Celine Geraghty, of selling agents SherryFitzGerald Harlin Farrelly. It has a loose price guide of €850,000-plus prior to auction, scheduled for May 21.

Waterfall House and the two-storey Miller’s cottage is down a leafy winding lane, with lots of ash and wild cherry trees, as well as pines and cedars, by a gently sloping valley with a mill pond and mill race, and an old water turbine is waiting for re-commissioning.

Some old disused mine workings are remnants in the landscape and there’s a range of old stone buildings (haysheds, stables, etc,) as well.

The vendor Charlie Coughlan, and his partner Sylvia, say the location is a real nature reserve, with otters, badgers, squirrels, mink, foxes and rabbits in abundance, there’s a rich birdlife and they have grazed a small flock of sheep on the 11 acres.

The couple have swapped this riverside retreat for a seaside house near Rosscarbery in West Cork - fresh water for salt water and pastures fresh.