Winterwood wonder

Tommy Barker admires a rare package in upmarket Douglas.

YOU think you could predict who the buyer might be for Winterwood —a trader-down? — but there may yet be a surprise in store.

Calling it a three-bed bungalow does it a bit of an understating disservice: what it is is a rare package for its suburban setting.

Built only in the last 18 months, it is in the former back gardens of a larger upgraded bungalow which changed hands at the tail end of the property boom for close to €1.5 million. Winterwood, though, is a stand-alone entity that can hold its head up in the company of much larger homes in this upmarket Douglas suburban hinterland where new and individual one-offs are rare.

It is accessed via the older Limetrees estate, and since it went for planning permission Winterwood has been joined on the (hedge)row by a few other new builds. It fits in almost completely unobtrusively among its neighbours, and the south city ring road, Lee tunnel, hotels like the Maryborough and Rochestown Park and Douglas village, are a couple of minutes by car.

Winterwood weighs in at only 1,100 sq ft of space, and is guided at €495,000 by Mark Kelly of Lisneys, but the bare bones don’t tell the story.

Architect-designed with distinctive features and hardly a wasted inch of space inside, it also maximises its small site, with no fewer than three bedrooms and three bathrooms.

A tall horizontally-planked cedarwood gate slides back (electrically controlled, of course) to reveal a low-slung home, with very deep overhanging eaves all around, and a set-back front door with almost enough space to park under the eaves and to scoot indoors from, without getting so much as a drop of rain on your clothes. Those eaves also give good shelter to the treated cedarwood cladding, while its windows and the living area’s patio doors can be left open in almost all weathers, with impunity.

The drive is block-paved, and there’s a narrow run of front lawn, parking for a few cars, and a sheltering screen giving extra privacy to the rear garden.

It is all fully-landscaped, with enough space to give that ‘room outdoors’ feel and to give a bit of enjoyable secateurs pruning time to, without consuming all your waking hours.

It clearly is an easy-keep property. The expectation in its original design, and now its Lisney sales pitch, is that it will be bought by a trader-down. And the main living space off the quality kitchen will take some fine large pieces of furniture, and two of the three bedrooms are en suite.

Features include high insulation levels within its timber-frame construction, good finishes and bathrooms, a smart kitchen design with double-thickness teak work tops and an adjoining pantry/utility, appliances are included. There’s gas heating and a gas insert fire in the chestnut-floored living room and good storage spaces as well.

The good news is that it could also do a young single person looking for a bit of timeless panache (but price-wise, is only going to suit the better-off example of this hard-pressed species), a couple, or even a young family. Think of it as a penthouse apartment, only down at ground level, in its own private grounds a few minutes’ walk from the centre of Douglas and with gardens, parking and privacy to boot.