Harbour home

WELCOME to a house with two different faces, and a lot going on inside: attractive on the outside, it has got an interior which is even better than its varied facades suggest.

Two-storey at one side, and three storeys to the brighter harbour-side, No 2 Sydenham Terrace in Cork’s Monkstown has had an interior designer in situ for a four year spell.

Designer Nuala Ryan and husband Michael returned to Cork from a spell in London , where they restored an authentic Georgian home in Camberwell.

They kept the period theme going at 2 Sydenham Terrace where they lived for the past four years, and are moving further up-river in Cork, well above the city, to yet another Georgian gem, in an undisclosed location. The terraced house they are leaving dates back, they reckon, to about 1840, which in Irish architectural terms sees it straddle the late Georgian/Victorian styles, and it also has Regency features picked up in its internal decor. Solidly built, impressively presented, it has been given a loving going over, plushly finished with an assured decorator’s touch including Nina Campbell fabrics and Colefax and Fowler wallpapers and strong Dulux heritage colours.

On the market with Hamilton Osborne King with a 750,000 price guide, about 3,000 sq ft of space and intriguing harbour views, it is expressively and expensively done, without going over the top, and is ready to move into, sprawl out at and enjoy.

One of a terrace of six well-kept homes, it has echoes of another fine Cork harbour residential terrace, the Crescent in Cobh, with private gardens behind separated in this instance from the terrace by a communal graveled avenue, with mature trees at the boundary and a walkway along the very back for a quick pedestrian route to Monkstown village.

At road level, you enter into a luxurious welcoming hall, with steps down to the semi-basement level where there’s a great big and bright family room and kitchen which has lots of maple units, bull-nosed granite worktops and splashbacks, as well as some exposed natural stone which sits just a little uneasily with the sleek contemporary feel. Entry level has two linked reception rooms, with high ceilings, subtle cornice work and picture rails, enormous hinged stripped pine dividing doors and warming big open carved timber, tile and cast iron fireplaces, with a club fender around one.

In addition, there’s a large formal dining room at this level, sharing the same style of graceful arched windows with south-east facing harbour views as one of the drawing rooms.

This level also has a small study, with a wall of built-in storage, ideal for a home office, and a guest bathroom.

The staircase to the four first floor pristine bedrooms has stood the test of time, with mahogany hand rail and painted spindles, and the window on the stairs indicates something unusual going on for a mid-terrace house: there’s a lightwell down between the linked houses to brighten up the core circulation

areas.

The top floor has four bedrooms, three of which are good sized doubles, three have harbour views, they have good high ceilings and they all have fireplaces, while the main bathroom is a suitably impressive, heavily tiled, den of comfort.

Location is seven miles from Cork city, and elevated Sydenham Terrace is back a bit from the sea above Monkstown, a good remove from busy-ness, with a cul de sac avenue by the national school serving the row.

There is parking on-street, No 2 has oil heating, a pretty and low-maintenance front garden, a large sheltered patio by the lower level outside the kitchen