Toast to charming Dún Árd

Tommy Barker says a wine cellar adds to this impressive holiday home.

RED or white? Try yellow, at this West Cork house wine offering.

Dún Árd is a crisply upgraded bungalow overlooking Galley Head lighthouse beyond Clonakilty, with elevated views, but hidden depths and delights, namely a proper wine cellar underneath its two level garage.

It was bought a decade ago by a Swiss duo, who were prepared to swap the scenic delights of their native mountains for the more gently rolling fields of Co Cork. The fact the sea was just a mile away helped, too, especially for those coming from a land-locked nation.

It started as a holiday bolt-hole, but the couple moved full time over in 2000, and while it had an earlier modernisation, they splashed out €12,000 on a new bathroom, adding the wine cellar (which local rumour at the time thought was going to be a swimming pool. Or a bunker? recalls vendor Helen Sauter.) It is tiled, and next to it is an infra-red heated sauna, just the thing to take the chill out of the bones after a walk on any of the many nearby long, sandy beaches and elevated headlands.

“People of the Ardfield parish are very friendly and very open minded. We got a warm welcome and always found open doors and made some good friends,” says Helen, admitting to mixed feelings and some regrets at the decision to move back closer to family in Switzerland: she cites a ‘not sincere’ job market for those with Continental habits, as well as an uninspiring health system, as reasons prompting the move back to the Swiss-German border north of Zurich, in a wine-growing region.

She and her partner, Michael Hoechli, had set up their own business from home, West Cork Wines, back in 2004, selling affordable and quality wines from the Languedoc-Roussillon region, and will sell this business separately.

Charged with the sale of Dún Árd, near Red Strand on the brow of a hill with stunning westerly coastal and lighthouse views, is Martin Kelleher of SWS Property Services in Clonakilty.

He seeks offers around €735,000 for the house on 0.8 of an acre with well-tended and planted gardens, overlooking the safe bathing area of Red Strand, Dirk Cove and the Galley Head, a 270 degree panorama, says Mr Kelleher.

Rooms include entrance and main hall, with a tiled floor, kitchen with hardwood units, utility and guest WC, dining room with fireplace and sea views, an oak-floored lounge connected to a larger sitting room with great views, oak floor and solid fuel stove, four bedrooms and a fully revamped bathroom with Jacuzzi bath.

The house has oil heating, phone and sensor alarm, and a first floor office/fifth bedroom, as well as attic stores with conversion potential.