Set course for Navigation Road

DIP into Dawna, a fine family home on one of Mallow’s top residential addresses, the Navigation Road.

The detached family home, which was a B&B a number of years ago, has an outdoor swimming pool for the hardy to the back, and a bathroom placed, unusually, to the front, with a bath positioned for views of the Blackwater River and the hills beyond.

Trees have encroached on the river view in the 50 years or so since the house was built, and only now is it set to leave family hands.

Dawna was built in the 1950s by Henry Copleston when he arrived in Cork from Cornwall, to his own design and using a local builder. He raised a family of three, and the house was big enough to accommodate them, plus grandchildren when they subsequently arrived.

It was a B&B for about a decade; three of its four first floor bedrooms are en suite and there’s a ground floor shower room among the good mix of nice-sized reception rooms, so it is adaptable for anyone with special needs, mobility issues or for an au pair. And, it has always been a good party house, with half the town of Mallow familiar with it, jokes one of the off-spring as it hits the market with Sherry FitzGerald, who seek €600,000.

The three-quarter acre site on the keenly appreciated Navigation Road is a bonus, notes Michael O’Donovan, and there are sloping front and rear lawns, as well as a double garage and lots of parking.

Internally, the house is solid and sound, but any new owners will probably do a bit of modernising, looking at things like bathrooms and a kitchen extension, although probably preserving the kitchen’s existing Aga cooker.

Rooms include entrance hall, living room (13’ by 18’) with fireplace and patio doors, breakfast room, dining room, compact kitchen, shower room and study/family room, with four overhead bedrooms — three en suite — and main bathroom.