Double delight in West Cork

Tommy Barker says sites should prove tempting for wealthy buyers.

A TIDAL reach of scenic shifting sands, and strong currents separates two quite rare West Cork property offerings, both with serious cachet for wealthy buyers.

Facing across the water at one another, one is a green-field site for a new home, high up on the banking grassy hillside above Inchydoney beach and close to the five-star beachside hotel.

The other is a long, narrow site but with three acres of land, with lots of water and shoreline frontage, with an existing quite large house, and a fascinating previous role in local mining and shipping history (see below.)

First up the site with full planning permission for a new-build. It is about three-quarters of an acre, which pitches it as one of the largest plots in the Inchydoney island area, notes local estate agent John Kerr.

Clonakilty coastal and beach region, of which Inchydoney and its golden, Blue Flag beaches is a key part, recently won yet another major tourism award, the European ‘Destination of Excellence,’ Best Emerging Rural Tourism Destination award for 2007. The local Lodge and Spa Hotel draws business nationally and internationally, and its property values have also gone sky-high. Higher than the houses built on the elevated island ridge, even.

Mr Kerr has a clutch of new stylish, holiday homes built and sold nearby in a cluster, aimed at the rental market, but fetching above the €800,000 mark apiece, on tight sites.

This one-off is a different offering, as underscored by its €750,000 asking price.

Its owners, based in Kilkenny, went through planning rigours, taking several years, and had wins and losses at both local and planning board levels, had always wanted to build a bigger house, but in the end had to settle for permission for a 1,800 sq ft home.

Having won the battle, the fatigued owners have now decided not to build, but to sell. John Kerr predicts strong interest, from Clonakilty itself and its professionals, and from much further afield too.

It will as readily suit for an all-year round home as a holiday base, and the beach is close to Clonakilty town itself.

Across the strand intake of Inchydoney island, via the mid-1800s built causeway, another new market arrival will be chased after.

Martin Kelleher of SWS Property Services is selling a waterfront property, on three acres at Rineen, Dunmore, a mile from the family-run, up-market Dunmore House Hotel, which even has its own golf course to its rear.

The Rineen property, up for sale for a local family, once housed a simple church structure, serving locals and miners who quarried and exported barytes (a mineral used in the manufacturing of barium for paper and paints) from this area. The old black and white picture here, recently resurrected in the local Barryroe co-op’s annual calendar, shows some of this activity.

The Rineen house in the church’s stead has 400 metres of frontage to the bay, with Atlantic views, and while it is already a quite sizeable home, it is going to find a buyer rich enough to lash money on top of its €1 million asking price.

It has four bedrooms and two reception rooms, oil heating,s a back boiler and, while dated, it is sound. The structure drops to a lower level closer to the water’s edge.

Getting permission to upgrade, extend, or even get another/alternative site on the three acres will be subject to rigorous planning strictures given the setting (just ask the guy selling his site across the water!)

But, with good and appropriate design it can be done: take a drive out along here and spot the one or two architect-driven well-designed houses between the road and the water, either side of Dunmore House Hotel, and dream on.