Go with the flow, live the Gulf Stream dream

Tommy Barker is entranced by this most verdant estate on the Kerry coast.

“GIVE a Dutchman two square metres, and he’ll garden it”, says Peter Martius, who along with his wife and fellow Dutch national Roely acquired almost 20 Kerry acres in 1993, and proceeded to tame them.

Land near the shoreline here at Tahilla is fertile, and growth is abetted by the warming influence of the Gulf Stream.

Little wonder that it had gone its own sweet wild way over 50 years of neglect, but green-finger graft and a knowing, sensitive planting has returned it to an even sweeter existence.

“Whoever buys Derreenrickard will be a lucky man indeed”, say Peter and Roely, speaking honestly and with more than a tinge of regret as they prepare to sell up for personal reasons, having re-built an old home and created a private garden idyll in one of Ireland’s most beautiful locations.

The gardens truly are their pride and joy, and the couple pass lightly enough on their fully-reworked, original 1870 stone cottage, furnished and finished to a very high standard, under a roof of salvaged Blue Bangor slate sourced from a Dublin church.

It is just two-bedroom at the moment, but is highly extendable, and only an innocent to the Kenmare Bay area and its hinterland would think the €2 million price guide quoted by Cork-based estate agent Dominic Daly a tad excessive.

The real deal here is the location, the space, the privacy, the grace of the gardens, the views: the package.

“A new owner might decide to put a second, grander house on the gardens and keep the current house as a guest cottage, or extend, or just enjoy it exactly the way it is”, says Peter Martius.

As it stands, Derreenrickard includes a workshed, green house, productive (naturally) vegetable garden, hen-house, three sheep, and a one-third share of 45 acres of adjoining commonage which can’t be built on, but which gives additional privacy, protection and pond, while Kenmare Bay’s glories are just a couple of hundred yards away.

Two golf courses are near, the Ring of Kerry and Parknasilla, and Derreenrickard’s existence is signalled by large stone pillars and cast iron entrance gates, erected before the house was restored and while the gardens within were being cultivated, painstakingly, by hand.

A 150 metre private driveway and bridge leads to a graveled parking area and the appealing rescued cottage residence, and the bulk of the land then flows away from the house to form the views.

The two-bed, two-bathroom cottage with large living area is cosy and comfortable, with a big open fireplace in the living room, and a secondary gas fire in the entrance hallway, and there’s a quality theme throughout, down to the granite kitchen worktops.

Fine timber-work features inside, such as the hardwood staircase, while some rooms have exposed beams and rafters in an old country style building which is stone-finished on the outside, fully insulated, slate roofed and topped with a double-gilded weather vane.

Windows are painted hardwood.

Walking the paths around the land takes 20 to 30 minutes, Roely reckons, longer if you dally, and there are temptation spots and seating areas to slow your progress.

The new owner, whoever or he or she may be, is certain to be into nature and the landscape, and the place teems with wildlife (otters, hares, bats and birdsong), thanks to its remaining natural cover.

Plants ideally suited to the acid soil include camellias, rhododendrons, tree ferns and azalias, and the couple have sourced plants from Mount Congreve in Waterford, local gardens, Scotland and places even more exotic, though hardly more beautiful, than Tahilla.

The sea is within smelling distance, the property includes a fresh water lake with trout, and the array of shrubs and trees ensures year-round colour. But, not tulips — they never really took.