Ashley’s a cut above the rest

BONNETS and hips, curtain swags and swagger — you can go one of several ways with the houses called Ashley.

There’s the Gone with the Wind ‘Ashley’ option: ‘Recession? Frankly, my dear, I don’t give a damn’ — even thought the line was Rhett Butler’s.

Then, there’s the safe, Laura Ashley decorating option: that design and materials company’s look can be cherry-picked for this Arts and Crafts architectural style (as might original practitioner William Morris’s style.) Then, for a bit more bling! there’s the Ashley and Cheryl Cole ‘Footballer’s Wives’ option, given the €1.3 million asking price and Cork Rochestown Road setting.

Facetiousness aside, these brand new houses mixing the best of Edwardian architecture, the art and crafts movement’s respect for craftmanship, and modern day building, energy efficiency and insulation standards are top drawer, and will draw the eye of envious lookers and viewers. Some buyers, too.

In anyone’s currency and books, €1.3m is a fair sized sum and, post-Celtic Tiger era, sales at this level are few and far between.

Selling at this level isn’t impossible, though, and the picky will see real value in these six only houses, selling through Savills, with one finished out, three more well advanced, and then two more to the eastern side to wrap up the Corbel Developments’ scheme.

Eschewing the contemporary 2000s look and opting for the safety of tried and tested design of a century ago, these houses have an immediate strong visual appeal.

There’s an average of 2,700 sq ft, and up to five bedrooms, with the top floor a spacious suite, for parents or princess daughters.

Bathrooms all have white Carrara marble, a very timeless five-star look, with Villeroy and Boch sanitary ware, Hans Grohe fittings and steam pumps for the master suite’s showers.

Kitchens are calm, restraint personified, by new name on the (chopping) block, Rod Allen, who left a high-profile company to go his own route. They come with hand-painted tulip wood and oak (some great wall shelving has gone up too in chunky oak in the family room), with broad quartz tops, coloured glass splashbacks. Sinks are Franke, and appliances include Smeg, Miele and Fisher & Paykel.

Joinery work is first rate too, from the finely laid Junkers herringbone oak laid in unusually long 18” staves, to the Charles Rennie Mackintosh-style wall panelling and wainscoting, and on to the laser-cut painted MDF Arts and Craft-inspired sliding wardrobe doors.

Ceiling heights are a bit extra, and doors a bit taller too in the main living areas, and fireplaces are Bolection moulded sandstone in the formal area, and a tall, plain, unadorned natural slate the stepped-down family room off the kitchen, with recessed stove.

The cut-string stair handrail is in mahogany, skirtings and architraves are extra sized, doors are hefty painted flat, four-panel ones from Rosewood Joinery with reeded, brushed stainless steel knobs, and electrical fittings are Le Grande. Carpets are rich, woven Wilton wool and joists have extra sound-proofing too — necessary perhaps because of the extensive Future Homes wiring for audio entertainment as well as CAT 5 cabling for broadband services and automation.

Gas heating is high efficiency condenser boilers, with solar panel back up and showers are pressurised. Energy rating is an A, for Ashley.

Give these (timber-framed, brick and render finished) houses have been delivered into the teeth of an unprecedented gripping recession, there must have been a temptation to cut corners. It has been resisted, and Savills Catherine McAuliffe believes there’s enough buyers to appreciate the extra effort.

Garden landscaping will be delivered to a plan by landscape architect Cass Roche. Match the obvious unstinting specification to the level of craftmanship and the hand-made Ibstock bricks, granite sills, the clay tile details and roof hip bonnets, the corbels even the weather-struck joints in the brick work — and these are houses that will stand the test of time. Ashley’s design is a century old, after all.