Sublime country setting

THE splendour falls on span new walls — across the fields, the long light shakes across the lakes.

Tennyson aside, this house at Ballymichael, Lissarda is sublime — set amidst the rolling hills and watery lands at Lissarda, Co Cork, it’s a spec build and hits the market at a reasonable, e830,000.

Located just off the main Cork/Macroom road, this area is a booming commuter belt, (access to the local garage is as close to stock car racing as you’ll get at peak times), the property is just a 20 minute drive to the city.

The location’s peace and beauty is what drives the market here.

A family looking for the ultimate trading up home in the country should talk to Fiona Hourihan of Sherry FitzGerald, (with Michael O’Mahony of O’Mahony Properties), because this house is well worth a look over.

It comes with low stamp duty (around e5,000, she says), and there’s e15,000 in PC sums for a kitchen and fireplaces.

But apart from all that, it’s the space and the aspect that will be the key selling points — along with the superb level of finish. Glistening porcelain tiles, with underfloor heating, run from an impressively large hallway all the way through to the main living areas.

A projection from the main block of the house, this wing faces south to west with windows on all sides.

There’s a free flow of space all the way through from the front door, and rooms include a kitchen/dining room and sunroom. Double doors open onto an indian slate patio and at the rear a perfect square of south-facing garden is delineated by an old field boundary, with lots of mature trees.

Back off the hallway there’s a mahogany floored reception room to the left and along to the right (past a big cloakroom and huge guest bathroom), there is a full length recepion room. Again, this leads out to the patio and picture windows overlook the front garden. A cut-out fireplace is fitted on the west wall, where a corner window give extra interest.

It’s not hard to see that the house comes with 3,346 square feet of space — the bespoke beech staircase leads to five bedrooms on first floor level and a fully floored attic space beyond, again, accessed by a property staircase.

Three of the five rooms are ensuite and the master bedroom faces south and west and has a Juliet balcony looking onto the garden and fields beyond. Room sizes are generous and with the attic there’s tons more space to play with.

This house looks modest enough from the front, but even a cursory glance can see the level of finish: carved teak fascia, landscaped gardens, lighting and those other touches that mark this house out as a good ‘un. There are lots of other extras included in the spec and a tour around will make all clear for buyers in this bracket.