Crowning glory in scheme overlooking a golf club

IF house roofs can be compared to hats, then the crowning glory on the eight-only detached houses at Brickfields look closest to skull caps.

The distinctive houses surprisingly have rooms on three/five split internal levels, with curved metal roofs, sloping, not just one direction, but in two ways. Complicated engineering, to be sure, but graceful nonetheless.

Finally coming to market as the last phase, Brickfields is a scheme of 56 houses and apartments off Cork’s Skehard Road which is a handy 0.9 of a mile from the heart of Douglas village. They are selling from a robust €925,000 upwards via Timothy Sullivan Auctioneers.

The south-facing suburban houses have the very best setting in this development, at the back. In fact, it is one of the best aspects in town, in a rare privileged position on a hill ridge, overlook the green sward of Mahon Golf Club course, the shimmer of Douglas estuary, Douglas village towards the west, Rochestown’s hills and the south ring road in Cork. And these homes are equally visible from many of those view points. For those who buy here it will be the sales clincher.

There’s a few older, detached houses sharing this ridge, and one built in the 1990s called Blackwater House recently sold on a half acre for €1.5 million, while closer to Douglas mature detached houses with lower settings sell from €1 million to €1.5 depending on size and quality.

Two of the Brickfields Downs houses have been bought prior to launch, built in timber-frame by Bowen Construction for developers the Douglas Partnership, to designs by Bertie Pope and by Planning and Construction Concepts. According to estate agent Tim Sullivan, buyers so far have been families trading up, and that’s where he expects most interest.

The Downs houses weigh in about 2,000 sq ft each, and have an individual, multi-layered or half-levels internal layout with entrance hall with living room to front/entrance, an open-plan kitchen/dining room and utility underneath. The first upper level floor has a bedroom/living room to the front with balcony and en suite, the next level stepped up and back has two bedrooms and a bathroom, and the top level has a huge bedroom, again with en suite, with a decked balcony running the width of the house.

Central heating is gas, the timber frames, Classic aluminium and pine windows and Fermacell boards ensure good comfort levels. Internal joinery is in ash, the roofs are seamless Kal-Zip metal, each house has a good stretch of garden to the south and those killer views, and the closely-placed detached houses’ external finishes are a mix of cedar and trowel-on coloured render. (Eight two-bed 820 sq ft apartments are available nearby in a final Brickfields Mews block at €415,000 each, but only the detached houses have views.)

Those four-bed, two en-suite Brickfields Downs houses are being sold with a so-called builder’s finish, painted inside and out, with bathrooms, but without a fitted kitchen.

The location, views, detached status, architectural novelty and freshness of design, and limited number will ensure interest and sales.