The Acre: apple of your eye

Tommy Barker views a 1930s house that was built in a former orchard.

HOUSING estates are built in varying densities on sites of different sizes, but at this Tivoli, Cork address, its six to the acre.

This row of three groups of semis, each south-facing, and called The Acre, was built in the mid-1930s in the former walled orchard of a property owned by Tivoli Spinners.

One of the original apple trees survives in the back garden of number four, The Acre, a house which pitches itself as pick-of-the-crop.

Number four was bought three years ago by its current owners, and what a difference a few years make: a thorough renovation has been undertaken by a combination of professionals and the owners. The result is a walk-in with panache.

The look is contemporary yet comfortable, a city penthouse apartment look, style and standard, but achieved across a two-storey house of 1,500 sq ft with three bedrooms.

The house has been re-worked internally, with walls knocked or moved, doors taken out and new openings created: one of the vendors is an engineer, and had the confidence to consider not only work on this level, but to do much of the finishing work himself, and to a level sufficient to challenge many professionals.

Selling agent is Michael O’Donovan, of Sherry FitzGerald in Cork city, who guides number four at €525,000 and says the house will have a wide appeal, to local families, couples and to those who are re-locating and want a Cork address with river Lee views.

The location is beyond the turn up to Lover’s Walk and Montenotte, and before the Silversprings Hotel, set back up off the main Tivoli Road: the city centre is about two kilometres up river, to the west.

The best quality materials have been used here, and the tone is set from the hall’s oak floor to the new etched-door window panels inwards.

Off to the right, there’s a private lounge, with wall-mounted and recessed gas fire floating on a section, a window facing the front view, and behind a private decked-and-sheltered lower yard. Above is a raised-and-decked seating barbecue area, and the pretty garden slopes up again to a high stone wall, a reminder of this garden’s past as an orchard. The surviving apple tree is a rosy-cheeked eater.

Off the other side of the hall is an opened-up living room, dining area with matching French oak floor, and behind, in an extension, a drop-dead cool galley kitchen, very a la carte and cutting edge with its white-stone worktops, dark wenge timber and glass units, and glass splashback behind the touch-control hobs.

There’s access to the back of the house from here, to the enclosed yard on one side and the raised garden on the other.

Upstairs there are three bedrooms (reduced from an original room count of four, smaller rooms) and a swish main bathroom, handsomely tiled and with good sanitary ware, including a bath which rounds out at one end to accommodate a curved shower screen.

The master bedroom is a large space with river views, and it has an en-suite bathroom with Tardis-like, shower-steam-room enclosure, a plumbing installation worth thousands of euro (when the house was viewed this week, a planned glass-block screen dividing the bathroom from the bedrooms had yet to be fitted).

Number four, The Acre, is done to a fastidious level, with some original features, such as the doors, retained but smartened up: brushed steel handles and hinges match the new metal sockets and switches.

Even the garden is well-wired: the front path, in a flinty gravel with flagstones, is lit and has a motion sensor to welcome callers and beckon them to the shiny black front door.

Lawns on either side are a healthy green sward of turf, contained by sawn sections of old railway sleepers.

Houses at either end of the group-of-six, pleasantly detailed homes have large sunrooms to the front, two houses share a spreading Cedar tree, and there is open car-parking space, though each house has an assigned, small garage for storage.

There are sloping gardens front and back.

Number four has an alarm, good electrical specifications, gas heating, and new windows — it is a true walk-in job.