Glenbeigh beauty

LIFE'S a beach sometimes, and for those who want to be beside the seaside, a second chance to buy a one-off house on the Ring of Kerry has come up.

A sale agreed and far advanced on this Glenbeigh beauty fell by the wayside in the last few weeks. While the vendors' plans to emigrate hit this unexpected speed-bump, the gem on the ring is expected to find another buyer quickly - despite the hike in price to a 2005 level of around €800,000.

This two-year old modern take on the traditional Irish vernacular is on two acres of land by the sea, with views to gazump for. It went for sale in summer 2004 with a €700,000-plus price guide, and sold for well over that, to a Limerick buyer as a holiday home.

However, the deal fell apart months after the sale was agreed (about one in three such agreed sales hit snags by the contract signing stage) and now the joint agents Eddie O'Donoghue and Sherry FitzGerald Coghlan are back on the selling case, hoping to have a new owner in residence for summer 2005.

The house got two pages of coverage here last year, and features in this year's just-published essential Build Your Own House and Home magazine, as well as making other Irish interiors magazines.

"It has got the wow factor," says estate agent Eddie O'Donoghue simply.

Location is within a few minutes' walk of the shingle beach Reenalagane, looking over Inch and Rossbeigh beaches and Dingle bay, with Dooks golf course also in view.

It is a large four-bed house built by Belgian woman Karine Evans and her husband, Dubliner Paul, with an additional self-contained flat, used by visiting Belgian in-laws.

It's a great mix of bright, modern, open-plan space encompassed in a shell of traditional materials such as pale pink sandstone, wood, slate and glass, with the raised barges giving it a rooted to the past feel.

It is funked up by things like Marvin glazing and lots of double height spaces, and as Paul is a cabinet maker of note the quality of the joinery - especially the kitchen - is assured.

It comes with over 2,400 sq ft of space, view-orientated on the ground level, and the attached one-bed guest apartment has a further 500 sq ft, linked by a short elbow of corridor.

The selling agents prediction last summer that buying interest would be Irish, not UK or Continental, was borne out last time around, and a mark of the country's current prosperity is that there are Irish buyers with this sort of sum and far more available to spend on a second home.

Two of the four bedrooms here are ensuite, the ground level has underfloor heating, and the open living space at this lower level takes in dining room, living space, sun room (with exposed and reclaimed Oregon pine beams) and an overhead gallery with a glazed roof pane.

The house also contains a utility, pantry, bathroom, study, cloak room and tack room and hall with curved stairwell.

Heart of the home, the kitchen has hand-painted solid pine units, with maple and elm worktops.

It also has a cream-coloured Aga range, modern double oven, larder press and a Belfast sink.