Sitting pretty in a designers’ triumph on the Dingle peninsula
CALLING cards for a design business don’t come much more impressive than The Mill.
Called after an earlier building on a Dingle peninsula hillside surrounded by streams, and with the sound of winter waterfalls in the background, The Mill combines strong architectural input, with clear respect shown for its rural site (and planners’ sense of caution.)
Plonk most 4,500 sq ft new homes down on any country site and they are going to shout for attention, and boast about their size and status. Not so with architect Gerard and Kayrena O’Dowd’s family home at Gortanedin, near Castlemaine in Kerry, a product that is even more than the sum of its parts.
Just about a mile off the Dingle road and with the well-serviced village of Boolteens a similar walk away, via field paths or boreens, it is rural tranquillity, with modern conveniences, served up on a 1.1 acre site and with a commensurate €1.1 million price tag, via selling Kerry agents Property Partners Daly O Sé, with John Diony O’Connor in Dingle and Liz Galwey in Castlemaine.
It first featured on page one of this paper just a few weeks back as its grounds were being finished off for the purpose of sale, and huge work has been done since to get it all finished off to the level now seen here in photographer Denis Scannell’s recent visit shots, down to stream-side seating areas and private, spa retreat-like private areas with more man-made water features than you could shake a hot stone at.
Clearly the couple are design conscious, this big family home they have spent the last 18 months in as they finished it all off is quite flawless, and thoughtful in provision of things like copious storage, laundry chutes and laundry room, a boot or mud room for disrobing, a covered car-port linking the main 4,500 sq ft house to the 500 sq ft garage – there’s space for any size family to sprawl out in, and still keep the whole show neat and tidy.
Architect Gerard O’Dowd runs the locally-based house design firm ADC with a partner John O’Riordan, and they’ve a strong output locally in Cork and Kerry, including some prize-winning work at the new homes development Springwell Gardens for builder Liam Sugrue. He’s done a lot of big one-offs, and now The Mill brings together some of their best work and ideas.
From the outside it is a design that won’t scare the horses, or the neighbours, and certainly the breaking up of wings and elements manages to conceal the bulk and size: modesty, after all, is the new bling.
An evidently huge amount of local craftmanship and materials has gone into its building, and it is likely to get an A-energy rating. Stone came from Lispole, further out the road to Dingle beyond Inch, but more stone, redder in colour, came from the site here, handily giving a low ‘air miles’ rating... except for the huge volumes of fine American walnut timbers, liberally used for interior joinery in floors, worktops, closets and even used in ceiling beams, along with some poplar timber.
Other external materials include slate for the roofs, painted teak fascias and soffits, cast iron rainwater goods, natural-looking dash on some walls, high quality windows and doors from a premium Munster Joinery range, as well as extensive paving and landscaping.
Throw into the mix a large dog/pet run, children’s play area with large wooden playhouse and balcony, new arched stone bridges – necessary to get into the site, but a feature in their own right – private seating areas, utility compounds and a courtyard, and a whole host more, and you can see this is a place a family can expand into.
Although up at the end of a boreen, it has several near neighbours and can’t be seen from the main tourist road beneath to Dingle: it is about six miles from Inch beach, and has sea and mountain views to the front, and the looming ridge of the Slieve Mish mountains to the back.
Hi tech touches include wiring for SmartHome IT and entertainement, with home cinema and multi-room audio set ups, central vacuum, underfloor heating thoughout, oil-fired with a high-efficiency boiler, but with provision for solar panels, and there’s gas for cooking and feature fireplaces.
Rooms include American-style large family/dining/kitchen, separate formal lounge with open fireplace and bay window, stepped up hallway and seating space, a private study, that feature spa-quality ground floor bathroom with egg-shaped bath and private courtyard off, next to a guest bedroom (which makes great sense for Part M planning requirements for disability/whole life design) and around 800 sq ft of utility/pantry/cloakroom/mud-room space off the kitchen, leading to the sheltering carport.
Unusually, there’s hardly a wasted square foot of space given over to corridors.
Overhead, The Mill has four more bedrooms, all en suite, and the master ensuite is really that, with hotel-quality bathroom white in dark brown hues, and with two extensive dressing rooms snuck in over two levels. There’s also a play room over the car-port and a gym space.
If you can afford to buy this €1.1m home then you probably have already acquired a fair bit of discretionary baggage.
The Mill is a house big enough to swallow it all, though, and yet seem all neat and tidy. Quite a trick.
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