Gurteen House far from mundane

EVEN from the outside, Gurteen House near Bandon in Co Cork looks that bit different, but the differences really stack up on closer examination — spooky eyes follow your around the outside and inside of this unusual property mix.

Being offered as a private house sale with two adjoining properties giving a total of 10 bedrooms, with its quirky, moody and brooding character it could suit a niche commercial use too what chance as a base for murder mystery weekends?

Two dozen carved gargoyles, fancifully positioned to ward off evil spirits, are dotted around the outside, and can be spotted lurking in the interior as well.

This fanciful wildlife park of lizards, snakes, frogs and mythical animals marks Gurteen out as a place apart, and it has other almost Gothic style features as well to captivate the eye, with huge stone fireplaces, wood panelled ceilings and Tudor style staircase in one section as well.

On the market with Hamilton Osborne King with a €550,000 price guide and 4.5 acres of land, it is, in fact, two houses built side by side and so are semi-detached, but with more than a century elapsed in construction and design between them.

An original Georgian farmhouse (pictured on the left) had a second, Victorian dwelling added alongside it for a family member back in the 1850s, at one stage a third house was part of a unusual mix.

The current owners have been here for almost 25 years, and have never lived in the Victorian side of the house: in fact, it has not been occupied for the best part of half a century, and so truly has been untouched by modernity.

With work overseen on it by the same architect/engineer who built St Patrick's Catholic church in Bandon, it is obvious the same masons were drafted in to Gurteen House to lift it out of the ordinary (or else this is where their surplus carvings ended up) and it has been worked on with a sense of humour.

Figures of kings, queens and knights dot some inside ceilings, such as the entrance hallway and dining room, and suggest a quirky narrative: one of the vendors suspects the carvings hint at an infidelity between the royals, with the knight having an eye for the queen.

Put up for sale earlier this month, viewings to date have been from would-be private buyers keen to upgrade the whole property as a very distinctive private residence, according to Peter Cave of Hamilton Osborne King, but there is clearly scope for country guesthouse/visitors, restaurant or themed weekend gatherings as well.

It may well make over its €550,000 guide, and with the work needed and the potential for something really magical and valuable when conserved, some would-be buyers could be looking at a €1 million project.

The older, Georgian portion has been in continuous residential use and has two comfortable reception rooms with cast iron fireplaces, kichen/dining with oil fired Stanley, utility and five bedrooms and main and guest bathrooms, and has central heating.

It could be easily lived in while starting in on a major project and labour of love alongside.

This surprise package next door has very large reception rooms, sandstone fireplaces, pitch pine ceilings, a hefty Gothic/Tudor staircase with stone carvings on the newels, and, although vacant for half a century, has been re-roofed in the last few years.

In addition, there's an old coach house with conversion potential, four lose boxes, old orchard, and 4.5 acres of land with the chance to buy further land if required for those with a really open chequebook and a spirited sense of vision.

The grounds already include an old road bridge, now defunct after a road change, just another oddity that seems appropriately right at Gurteen. Fed up of the mundane in the housing market? This is your chance to remedy boredom. Have fun.