Enjoy a lakeside lifestyle on a manageable country estate

Tommy Barker says there’s much to admire in delightful Dereen House.

DESPITE appearances, not every single person in the country is broke or heading out of a job, and not ever cent and euro in the country’s coffers and private accounts has vanished without trace.

Someone will raid a mattress, or a bank account, or flog a deadbeat racehorse or offload a boat, or a villa – and find somewhere, somehow, the wherewithal to buy Dereen House. They may even face competitive bidding, despite the €2.2 million asking price, via agent Brian Olden of Cohalan Downing.

Whoever the brave buyer will be, he or she will reap the rewards in the coming decades as they ease into an enviable family lakeside lifestyle and manageable country estate setting, half an hour from Cork city and an international airport, and with the amenities of the scenic Lee Valley on its doorstep.

The solid, timepiece house just to the east of Coachford isn’t very large. In fact, at just over 3,200 sq ft much, much larger modern piles have been built willy-nilly in the Celtic Tiger years.

The setting’s the star, though, within an exquisite sloping wooded and wholly private setting, and with a maturity that only time – not all the money in the world – can bestow on it.

It’s tempting to quote the cider ad line ‘nothing added but time,’ but unfortunately it doesn’t quite fit: the already fine assets of nature’s bounty and landscaping have been hugely enhanced by human hand, by burly men with shovels creating dams and sluices, and more latterly with machinery, to create a three-quarter acre lake that looks like it has always belonged. As far as the resident trout are concerned (and, sparing the rod,) it is a universe until itself.

The Georgian house is said to date to the late 1700s/early 1800s, and is characterful charm personified, re-roofed a couple of decades ago and needing not much more than the bustle of family life to awaken from its winter slumbers.

Having said that, it is a sure fired bet a new owner will make heady changes, as its decor and material-clad walls darken the feel, especially at the back. For those planning to make changes, there’s already a 1980s built bungalow right alongside, with five bedrooms, to decant a family into while the work progresses.

With its land, a mix of woodland and pasture let out as con-acre, and with a tennis court, lake and stables, Dereen House is all the property that any local or relocating well-heeled buyer would ever want. That’s ironic, as its owners for the past several decades have had multiple homes, in Europe and the US, and lived here in the Lee Valley (in idyllic isolation, with two daughters) only on a part-time basis.

When they bought it decades ago on their honeymoon, and went on to visit with their daughters, the constant care came from local man Con O’Shea, a mason by trade who agreed to caretake it for a month or two, ‘til they found a full-time minder. He became that minder, to their luck and benefit, and now not only are the estate and avenue and walled gardens all in fine sandstone fettle, he also kept the house aired, safe and secure and ready for visits.

In recent times, the old stone stables in the L-shaped rear courtyard have been re-roofed, new steps in the gardens, grounds and down in the magical bluebell-strewn glen installed and the lawns have the signs of regular grooming. As most of the 46 acres of land is working farm, in pasture, and the woodland minds itself, the actual outdoor upkeep is manageable, says Mr O’Shea.

Dereen House has one of its four reception rooms upstairs, and has great views down to the lake, and a bath in the master bed en suite has similar, water-to-water views. Two of the other reception rooms have double aspect, with side and front windows, while the rear, pine-panelled study is a perfect evening-time retreat. The kitchen, to the back, will be one of the first things any buyer will look at changing, bar perhaps keeping the white four-oven Aga. Quite a few houses of this vintage have had large, modern additions grafted on, and it is likely those falling for Dereen’s charms will have some similar or other Grand Designs in mind. It is a place for life.