Solution to an equation

NEW RESIDENTS at 36 Sunday’s Well Road in Cork city will wake up each morning to much the same view as one George Boole - the 19th century mathematician credited with facilitating the modern day computer.

The house faces full-south over the River Lee, the cricket grounds, tennis and boating club and on to UCC’s main quadrangle and Boole library: George Boole was UCC’s (then Queens College Cork) first professor of mathematics, and the college recalls his legacy.

Boolean algebra is credited with facilitating modern computer programming, telephone switching and other IT applications.

The vendors of no 36 say George Boole was an early resident in this 1836 house, though he also lived on Grenville Place, before moving to Blackrock, where a plaque on a house bears his name and legend.

It has been 33 years since no 36 last changed hands, and typically these large Sunday’s Well homes last for decades in same-family ownership, coming up for sale only at a generational cusp because the values are now often too high for one sibling to buy out the others.

No 36 is for sale with Brian Olden of Lisney, who gives it a modest-seeming guide of €800,000 plus.

Recent comparable sales in the vicinity range to €1 million and €1.4 million for a similar large semi with equally great gardens stepping down to the river, but that latter house had the advantage of parking for up to four cars.

In contrast No 36, which is at the foot of Buxton’s Hill has on-street car-parking with residents’ permits, and the property is through a discrete doorway in a stone wall, leading to a flagstoned private courtyard and on to the front door. To the south, the half acre-plus of gardens steps in tiers down to the river Lee, and the vendors’ childhood involved boating and canoeing on the river, and picnics in Fitzgerald Park.

The house has period detail and immense character and charm, but new owners will commit to spending quite a bit more on modernising while keeping these original architectural features in place.

There’s a sun room with balcony straight through the entrance hallway, so that great south-facing vista and river aspect is there from the start.

Accommodation is over three levels, with a linked mid/entry level formal living room and drawing room sharing south-facing views with bay windows. To the back of the house is a very unusual further reception/office/bedroom, with corballed barreled ceiling and ornate rooflight.

The main bathroom, with corner bath and shower, is off the stairwell (the stair spindles are attractively carved) and the top floor has three bedrooms.

The lower ground level has a large kitchen, and adjoining dining room: an obvious option is to knock through for a large family kitchen/living space, and easy access to a generous terrace.