The only way is up for No 5 Clarence Terrace

Tommy Barker discovers artistic flair in the St Luke’s suburb of Cork.

THERE are townhouses, as they build them now, and there are townhouses, as they built them then. Proving that they built them better, and bigger, back then, is number 5, Clarence Terrace, in Cork’s St Luke’s Cross suburb.

The area is rich in late Georgian and Victorian homes, with terraces of considerable grandeur.

Cork City Council has named it a ‘special area of conservation,’ and it could be put on an architectural tourist trail, given its proximity to the city centre.

That proximity, the quality of the period housing, and a growing appreciation for ‘the genuine article’ have resulted in the area’s slow re-gentrification and strong buying demand.

Look out the window of number five, which is restored and end-of-terrace, and you’ll see other renewal projects, with sash windows being refitted and slate being put back on roofs.

Number 5’s vendor is artist Geraldine O’Riordan: she bought it a few years ago from Lee Burfoot, who specialises in renovating older properties.

Though the house had been sensitively restored, O’Riordan applied her stock-in-trade as a decorative artist to it, which is testament to her handiwork.

Peter Cave, of Hamilton Osborne King, values the house at €800,000. To ordinarily buy a house in this area would be to renovate, but number 5 needs nothing, not a bob to be spent bar its eventual purchase price, and even repainting it would be a sacrilege.

Geraldine spent two months painting and decorating: if you had to pay her to do this it would cost many thousands of euro.

“From a business point of view, I am currently concentrating on mural painting and decorative painting, doing a limited number of commissions a year, and I have an exhibition of my painting coming up at Gallery 44, in MacCurtain Street, in October,” she says.

Some of her representational art hangs on the walls of her home, so sale viewers will get an early preview of the quality and range. Many of these are paintings of Cork city scenes, old buildings, docklands, doorways, passed everyday and sometimes taken for granted until represented, framed.

Every room of number 5 has been given a distinctive finish or effect, from colour blocking and dragging to marbling and trompe l’oeuil, but what ties it together is the subtlety and the serenity it bestows. It is a house in which to escape the throng.

There is 3,000 sq ft of space, over four floors, with the basement a self-contained (own services and metres) two-bedroomed apartment. This has access to the front, and its own, lower rear yard beneath the main, walled-in, easy-keep yard with box hedging, gravel and seating areas.

The main house is accommodating on many levels, and has twin, elegant, front and back reception rooms of graceful proportions, with sliding, connecting doors and suitably grand fireplaces, one with a solid-fuel stove in front.

There’s a modern, no-fuss galley kitchen behind the stair storage area — painted with lime green touches — and this opens to the courtyard behind.

Geraldine has used the main first-floor room as a formal reception or drawing room, with dining at one end.

This room has marble walls and a painted fireplace, with the two sash windows sliding to show views of Cork’s rail station, docks, river, wharves, shipping and silos, the future ‘docklands’ redevelopment campus.

Nothing wrong with the view as is, but a new 21st century city quarter beckons.

To the rear of the house, Geraldine has created an evening ‘withdrawing room,’ with a TV and copper and gold-hued painted lozenges on the walls.

Either or both of these mid-level rooms could be used as bedrooms, as Geraldine has reconfigured the layout to her own needs, with just two bedrooms on the top floor. One of these is a large master bedroom with walk-in wardrobe, and a separate office that could become an en-suite bathroom.

The main house’s two bathrooms are on the return levels: the lower one with separate, double shower and cast iron roll-top bath; the upper one with large shower cubicle. Both washrooms are pristine, with painted swags and block-work in one, as well as a distressed, sky-blue, painted lofty ceiling, and immaculate, sealed tiling and muted colours in the lower room.

Number 5, original and with a warm, stripped pine feel, is part of a residential, owner-occupied terrace with preservation order on the structure, and off-street parking in front for two or three cars.

There’s an unkempt garden in front of the terrace, which may be developed in the future, and planning controls will be tight.

The area has good schools, a direct bus route (the number 8 runs to University College Cork) and the city is a few minutes’ stroll away.

Nothing to do but move in, then. Not even a paintbrush to lift: “I honestly don’t think it could be improved,” says the vendor, and for once you can take a seller’s word on their home.