Not exactly run of the mill

Tommy Barker walks us through once-doomed Palace Anne mills which found a reprieve when a UK couple took it on.

LOFT living is all the rage in Manhattan but it is a new concept to a place like Murragh in West Cork.

The roadside mill building has had a conversion as dramatic as that of St Paul on the road to Damascus; only this conversion is on the road from Bandon to Dunmanway, Enniskeane and on towards Bantry.

The quality of the work, and the interiors, is as good as you'd expect to find in any world capital.

The thoughts of the UK family of developers behind this unusual project are: "This is the standard we develop to in England, and why should we try and do anything less for the Irish market?"

Roy Coles and his wife Gail were on holiday in the south west in 1995 when they happened to pass the derelict mill building, Palace Anne mills, on the edge of the tiny Murragh hamlet 26 miles from Cork city.

The 1714-built mill, in use up to 1967, was under a death sentence, with a local authority demolition order over its head since the start of the 1990s, after the mill equipment was removed by crane through the roof. This left some of part slate- hung old stone building open to the elements.

By a fortuitous passing along the road, the Coles earned it a reprieve.

"We saw the enormous potential in saving a prime building of great historical interest from demolition," says Roy Coles, who with input from the local heritage society, has researched its history (see below).

Bravely, they bought it, with a confidence inspired by having tackled buildings in a worse state historical renovations are their area of expertise.

Then began the slow process of getting planning permission for conversion to apartments, a procedure which dragged on until 1999 and necessitated buying additional land to allow safe access off the busy road.

Almost 300 years ago the mill had taken two years to construct and devoured two million cut stones in its structure: it has taken just over a year to bring the first phase of conversion to delivery, and the sales process has just started.

What is going on offer, with Martin Kelleher of South Western Property Services in Bandon, are nine apartments, with an eye-catching 2,200 sq ft duplex penthouse apartment as its crowing glory.

Price guide for this house-sized, four-bedroomed whopper is €450,000, which might raise an eyebrow or two in the locale. But, shift a place of this calibre to an urban location and you'd pay multiples for something of similar quality.

That sum is for the penthouse, where seeing is believing, and photographs only hint at its spread of space, which includes a rooftop sun room with six velux windows; a spiral staircase to the wood-beamed and slope-ceilinged living area, where leather sofas and a plasma TV screen definitely give the place a 21st century opulent air.

Other options include similarly stylish 1,400 sq ft two-bed apartments at €280,000 on the mid-floors, and one-bed ground floor studios of about 550 sq ft for €170,000.

Mark Coles, the hands-on builder son of Roy and Gail says they won't drop the mill's fit-out specification for Irish buyers. SWS estate agent Martin Kelleher's feeling is that at least some of the units he is selling will go to UK buyers! (He expects local buyers to start literally at the ground level, and perhaps get lured upwards, tempted by the extra space and features).

While many people buying into West Cork want stand-alone remoteness, privacy, and sea views, there are others who want a property easy to lock up and leave, with minimal maintenance requirements, says Mr Kelleher.

Features at Palace Anne mill include a management company; lift access to all floors; fully fitted apartments; oak doors made by the Coles in their UK workshop; high quality kitchens with granite worktops and complete with appliances; carpets; retained details like wood beams; some exposed stone walls internally; and the old steel ties running through the apartments.

The mill itself was built initially by Lt Arthur Barnard, whose family also built Palace Anne mansions, a striking but now defunct three- gabled Dutch style period pile within a mile of the mill.

Corn came from the locale, but also from Canada, Argentina, South America and even Russia, and for several decades the West Cork railway was part of the supply chain.

Up to 20 families earned their daily bread and crust through the Murragh or Palace Anne mill. Other owners down the years included the Daly, Warner, Beamish, O'Connor, Norwood and Brookes families, as well as Rhyno Mills, also in Castleisland in Kerry.