Back to the future

GIVE it a few more years, a couple of creepers up the walls, and you won’t be able to tell if Beechmount House is original old, or cleverly copy-cat new.

It is, in fact, just four years old, but built with little regard to current high construction costs, conceived throughout on a generous scale.

Beechmount House is up on a hill above the main Cork-Kerry road at Ovens, about nine miles from Cork city and looking back this direction, on six acres of gardens and paddocks. The design palette is clearly classical and symmetrical Georgian: the portico has supporting Ionic columns and the wide steps up to the cast iron fanlight door with glazed side panels are made from cut limestone.