Butler awaits a buyer

HARD to find a fault with Butlerstown House — even the asking price of €1.5 million seems reasonable, all things considered.

The 200-year-old Georgian house, an hour from Cork airport and a mile or two from the sea, is in mint condition, thanks to a small string of owners who’ve had it on average a decade at a time, since the 1960s. They’ve included Dutch owners, rock song writers, a dentist who re-did the moulded plasterwork, and the current occupants have Welsh/German roots, and a passion for perfection.

They’ve made it work for its living for the last number of years, first as a five-bedroomed guesthouse, then offering it for up-market self-catering accommodation, retiring to their own quarters at one end of the long wing when paying guests are in situ.

A new owner can easily take on this guest business mantle, and use the good income to help fund a mortgage and lifestyle, but at €1.5m it is (even in current straitened times) a manageable enough buy for a number of likely target buyers. It is truly lovely, in a special seaside setting.

The setting is pastoral, rural, coastal, near the amenities of scattered Barryroe village, in rich farmland and in an understated tourist area, right on the Seven Heads peninsula and Courtmacsherry and Clonakilty are nearby.

Built 200 years ago for merchant Jonas Travers, it was once the centre of a prosperous estate, at one stage in the 1800s supporting some 60 tenants. The acreage fell to about 150 in the early 1900s, and now the house is on a reduced, but sheltered nonetheless, private 10 acres of mixed use land. That includes a high-walled garden of 1.25 acres, with old orchard and polytunnel, a crescent of woodland, formal but easy to keep gardens, lawns, immaculate stone outbuildings and a work shed to make any woodworker’s eyes water with envy. A lawn in front of the house’s long wing can be used for croquet, tennis, or general lolling in sunshine.

The Georgian house itself belies its 200-years of existence, with much of its period richness in rude health, with restored sash windows and working shutters. There’s pristine ornate and dentil plasterwork in a range of patterns, all glistening white (thanks to the dentist owner), and the parquet floored hall is graced by a bifurcated staircase which divides under a tall, arched window looking out on the courtyard buildings.

The kitchen has been put back in its original far-off section of the house with exposed stone walls, flagstone floor, meat hooks in the ceilings and remnants of the range of ovens and days of service, including a brushwood oven for breads. Now, it is a completely practical space with a modern black Aga, but still capable of turning out top fare for large numbers. The owners can call on the services of a selection of chefs in the locality when guests want to be fully catered for. Various herb beds, the polytunnel and the walled garden make an organic, no air miles menu a ready-made option.

Selling agents are Catherine McAuliffe of Savills and Martin Kelleher of SWS Property Services, and its practical €1.5m price — at least a million or so less than it would have easily fetched three years ago — is going to get some excitement going.