From horses to houses

BUILDERS try not to let the grass grow under their feet — but in the case of The Beeches, that’s exactly the landscaping plan adapted for this scheme of 13 serviced site.

The six acre, woodland-fringed site on the edge of Rathcormac village in Cork is set to go from horses to houses. Previously used for cross-country competition by the former Beechpark Equestrian Centre, the field next to the one-time Church of Ireland rectory has been laid out for serviced sites, for one-off up-market homes. Behind the scheme is a partnership that includes experienced builder/developer Tadgh Collins, who was a founder and director of Bride View Homes for 30 years, and who has spent the past five years on his own projects, including apartments in Fermoy. Apart from housing developments like the Ovals and Lansboro in Rochestown, he reckons that during his peak at Bride View they built three one-off houses a week.

Now, in partnership with his sons Barry and Victor, daughter Maeve Hornibrook and son-in-law John Hornibrook, an estate agent, the firm Colbrook is behind The Beeches, where the sites attractions should inspire some innovative house designs for other aspiring one-off home builders. Several hundred mature and specimen trees on the village-side six acres are protected, and include Oak, Beech, Chestnut, Monkey Puzzle, London Plane, Ash and many more, and the centre of this site is a set out as a green area, with newer trees just planted. Colbrook is selling 13 serviced sites, averaging one quarter of an acre each with a few one-third of an acre larger sites at the corner and buyers will be free to design their own new houses, subject to specific planning and some conditions about use of certain materials such as natural slate, cedar, stone, etc. Typical sizes will range from 2,000 to 4,000 sq ft (185 sq m to 371 sq m) they predict. Stone entrance pillars right at Rathcormac’s village boundary mark The Beeches site, other than that it is hidden from view by the century-old trees by the old rectory (owned now by the Hornibrook family) and an old pathway from the rectory to the former Church of Ireland church (just recently sold) through the woodland and by the Shanowen river has been reinstated for residents buying here.