Horse head way out in front as new era for area unfolds

Tommy Barker on a development that’s giving a harbour town a boost

WELCOME back to the past. The 1800s was a glory age for Cork harbour’s house builders, with villas, Georgian and Victorian mansions and terraces of note built to make the most of views, setting and harbour amenity.

Back then trains plied their way from Cork city outwards to towns and villages, with Passage West’s rail line opened in 1850 by Lady Deane, wife of one of the architects (Woodward and Deane) of Horse Head House which looked out on the last embankment stretch of rail line leading around the river bend into Passage West.

The rail line is now an amenity walk linking Passage/Monkstown back to Rochestown, and the more valiant exercise seekers can continue this now tarmac-ed path back via Blackrock Castle and/or the Mahon walk to the Marina.

Gloriously blessed by nature, Cork harbour has had mixed fortunes: rail lines closed, so did the commuter steamer ships, roads became congested, ship building came and went, and pharmaceuticals and other water-dependent industries flocked to its shores.

In some respects, the circle is turing again. IFI has been and gone and awaits yet another chapter.

The Cork-Cobh trains are more frequent than ever down one side of the estuary to Cobh on Great Island, and as Cork harbour’s roads choke with traffic, developers like Howard Holdings, who have far-reaching plans for Passage West, are re-floating the notion of river taxis up the Lee to Cork city.

Horse Head House’s current owner, the enterprising Tom McEntaggart, developer of 13 high-end homes, is part of the ‘faith in harbour renewal’ movement, and has more than put his money where his mouth is.

He has envisaged, commissioned funded, overseen and delivered a scheme of houses to suit the most fastidious. And, unlike the Nimby-ism prevalent elsewhere in the country, he has done it right in his own back garden.

In fact, he initially got planning for 15 houses here on eight acres, but sacrificed two to leave more breathing room around his own private, 1820 Tudor revival villa dwelling.

One is loosely modelled on the Gothic-gabled exterior of the original, but like all of the other more regency design varieties, the interior distinguishing features are openness, brightness and space, with high-end features and quality finishes.

Comfort comes from things like programmable underfloor heating downstairs, quality oak flooring and tiling at lower levels, and carpeting upstairs, central vacuum system to save lugging the hoover up and down the three or four internal levels, Agas in the kitchens (choice of contemporary Siematic or more traditional styled ones in painted solid wood from ukitchen maker David Kiely) an average of three en suite bathrooms in most homes, double-glazed Marvin Architectural windows, stunning large conservatories from Hamptons, weighing in at €70,000 to €80,000 each, tastefully done in painted hardwood.

Each house also has pressurised showers, Catalano sanitary ware, many of the principal bedrooms have balcony areas for harbour views and morning wake-up cups of coffee in the great outdoors, and living spaces are suitable grand, easily able to accommodate large furniture items.

Gardens average one third to a half an acre, and the first sales (there are three to date) saw some of the biggest sites snapped up in private €1.5 to €2 million deals with developer Tom McEntaggart (see also p1.)

Coming along now with estate agent Michael McKenna of McKenna O’Donoghue Clarke Real Estate Alliance are the next and final batch of big, big detached homes, priced variously from under and over the €2 million mark.

They’ll be some of the largest houses of all, up to and over 5,000 sq ft in equally distinctive designs, some three storeys over lower ground level, all of which use the same mellow Abington-style brick as seen in that signature Malahide north Dublin development (the original Abington Dublin homes launched in 2001).

There’s hardly a scheme to touch the harbour-side Horse Head in Munster and developer Tom McEntaggart’s ambitions for it, given the houses and development overall are so far advanced.

Horse Head is finally out of the starting stalls.