Design magic at the Outpost

Tommy Barker finds a reworked property with style and great river views

BUYERS looking for a home with a bit of design difference won’t have to look too hard when they hit the River Bandon in Kinsale.

A re-worked home at Cappagh — called the Outpost — has style, solidity and impact, as well as great river views spanning from the bridge to Garrettstown, beaches and the Dock in one direction, to the Gulley Bridge upriver, leading towards Dunderrow and to Bandon.

What was originally a 30-year-old split-level house on a site a good walk out from the town has been enlarged by its owners, as well as by a previous one, so that it has altered radically since 2003. The motivating factor was a drive to get the most of bend-in-the-river views.

With almost 2,000 sq ft in its main section and with a further 450 sq ft below in a largely self-contained guest apartment, it is a family, retirement or even a second home par excellence.

The Outpost had been expected to make €1.1/€1.2 million, but given the continuing slide over the summer months and drip-drip of economic woes, that price has now been swiftly re-adjusted by selling agents Sheehy Brothers (jointly with James Murphy Auctioneers) to €990,000. It is getting viewings and ensuing interest as a result, mostly from Irish families even though Kinsale has traditionally attracted probably the geographically widest cohort of buyers of any Irish town.

Despite all the changes, there is still a sense and feel of old meeting new. It doesn’t feel all brand new and just out of the box.

The main section, entered at the upper level, has four bedrooms, one of them a good 23’ by 11’ while also fitting in a dressing room and a shower room en suite. This bedroom also has garden access, all four bedrooms have garden and river views.

The rest of the dwelling includes a 22’ by 8’ hall, with part-exposed stone wall to apex height and quarry tile floor; a dining room, with a few steps down to a 23’ by 12’ living room, with feature stone hearth and open fireplace with log store to the side; a simple kitchen and there’s also a big sun room with its external wall glazed and with French doors to big balconies.

The self-contained apartment beneath has a big and bright living area opening to the garden, a compact kitchen and bedroom plus shower room.

With its south and south-west wrapping balconies, the Outpost is on a site of about one third of an acre in a very special and private location.

“A slice of heaven,” says Patricia O’Regan of Sheehy Brothers.