Thatch joins the Chase

YOU can’t see The Oaks for the trees at Limerick’s Curragh Chase woods.

The large thatched house, built five years ago, is on four hideaway acres in the amenity woodland park, the one-time estate home to the 18th century poet Aubrey de Vere.

A stone wall and electronic entrance gates along the forest road conceals the 3,000 sq ft romantically styled home, and the mature and more recent planting on the four acres gives further considerable screening.

About the only view of the place is from the air - and there’s even a space set aside on the curved drive which could conveniently be used as a helipad if a new executive-lifestyle owner so wishes, says its vendor.

Since its construction in 1999 it has been home to a German-Irish family who, with children more grown up, are moving to the coastline for a more retired lifestyle with boats.

Selling agent for the one-off thatched home is Pat Kearney of Rooneys in Limerick, who guides it at €1.3 million and who says “it is one of the nicest houses to come on the market in the Limerick area in many years, snugly located in a most tranquil setting.”

(The same agent has another slice of paradise, Eden House, also for sale on a wooded site in Curragh Chase, which hit the market earlier this year for its interior designer owner Mary Kellett with a €1 million price guide.) The Oaks comes with Irish traditional building style updated and enlarged - it is a far cry from the humble thatch of old, with open double height gallery spaces, open hearth fireplace, and five bedrooms, three of which have their own en suite bathrooms - see, even indoor plumbing! Rooms are laid out so that one galleried en suite bedroom can be considered self-contained for granny flat/au pair use, if needs be.

Living rooms include a lofty hall and dining room, sitting room, traditional kitchen with windows on three sides and pine units, utility, and construction of the H-shaped home is traditional masonry, with enormous attention to detailing in the hipped thatch roof which has a number of dormer windows stitched into it.

It was done by a craft-worker of the old school, and the ridge has been secured with chicken wire which means that it shouldn’t need any attention for the next 15 years or so, say the owners who also had no problems getting the building insured.

Location is about a half an hour’s drive out of Limerick city, off the Foynes road, with a lake nearby in the woods.

Much of the surrounding planting is of hardwoods up to 200-years-old, but more recent planting could be thinned out if new owners want to keep a horse. The grounds include old stone walls, flower and shrub beds, glass house, and the house has two phone lines and satellite TV.