Buy a small treasure in city

Tommy Barker contends that you can’t beat period-style character.

LAST sold back in 2003, No 3 Southern View is a not-so-small treasure.

The terraced cottage-like facade conceals a three-bed home of 1,050 sq ft, about the size of a standard three bed semi or modern townhouse.

And, while it matches its rivals in the space race, it out-does most in the style stakes: simply put, you can’t beat the character of a period-style home like this.

About a century old, the mid-terraced home is at the very start of the Douglas Road in Cork city, perhaps a kilometre from the city centre.

It has had one improving owner after another (the previous owners were here over a decade, before moving to the country), each has tweaked and upgraded, and all that’s left for another buyer is to move in and, well, a change of colour to suit personal tastes is as much as required.

Selling agent is Valerie Parkes of Savills Hamilton Osborne King, who guides it at €450,000, and who says the better two-bed apartments in the city centre are making this sort of sum.

Her Southern View offering has soul, more than enough space for a single buyer or a couple, has the privacy barrier of a walled and railed front garden, with a secure and private rear yard, and effectively has private parking down a side lane.

It has old-world feel with contemporary comforts, exposed brick in the downstairs back wall as a guarantee of its age and exposed hefty rafters in the upstairs main bedroom and bathroom.

The main living room is 23’ by 14’ and has its original cast iron fireplace, wood floor, working window shutters and exposed brick wall, with understairs storage, patio access, with further rear access also from the Shaker-style kitchen.

On the bedrooms front, the main first floor room is 21’ by 11’, full of visual appeal thanks to its beams, the other upper level room 13’ by 9’ is currently used as a study, the main bathroom is also to hand here under sloping ceilings, while there’s a good-sized ground level bedroom with shutters and chimney-piece, with wood floor.

Windows are teak double-glazed sash, with working shutters to the front of the house, and upstairs the dormers to the front have replacement wood casement windows. Heating is by gas, the city centre is an easy stroll, and the area is surrounded by lots of shops, services and even a trendy new Jupe bread, salad and soup take-away just out the Ballinlough Road.