Avenue to grand project

LOCAL gossip along the Blackrock Road in Cork would have you believe that a couple of new and renovated houses, currently in their finishing stages, are costing their owners €5 million or even €6m to complete.

And the nodding heads put it all down to the quality of address (well, they would, wouldn’t they, when they also live along the Blackrock Road?).

Whatever about the exact spending budgets of jobs in hand, it is clear that the Blackrock Road is capable of encouraging the upwardly mobile to part with millions of euro for the right home product.

Sailing slap bang into that sort of appreciation and valuing of location is Ashton Avenue — a grand project in waiting, currently dressed up as a two-bed cottage. More than a slice of garden heaven, it is, in fact, a perfectly square acre of old market garden and orchard with the outline of a piggery at one corner and a pleasantly old-fashioned “cottage in the woods” in another. All at the city end of the Blackrock Road.

Adding to the extraordinary peace of the place is the fact the entire acre boundary is fringed by a limestone wall. Even the 100 yards of approach avenue is bounded on each side by this old, feature stone wall. Within, all is peaceful and serene, full of birdsong and the rustle of falling autumn leaves. Old apple trees of many varieties crop up around the heavily-greened acre.

There’s a clear candidate site for a large, private new dwelling to be built, most likely, in the north east corner and it is probable that intending buyers will approach Cork City Council about the chance of getting one new house into the acre. They might want to offer to trade new for old but, truth be told, the cottage is an easy enough renovation job and shouldn’t necessarily be condemned. Instead, it might just be ‘relegated’ to gate lodge duty.

There is a downside to Ashton Avenue — its exit to the Blackrock Road is narrow with impaired sight lines. Were it not for that, the spot would be eyed up by developers keen to get a bit of density on the site.

That slight restriction (it is likely most regular drivers on the Blackrock Road won’t even know about Ashton Avenue’s existence) should keep development to a bare minimum and it does seem right for one quite special house to be sited here.

Several older houses on large grounds in the vicinity have been sold at market peak for €1m to nearly €3m. The Georgian villa Rosenheim across the Blackrock Road, on 1.2 acres, made €2.7m at auction three years ago.

This Avenue site could take a contemporary large new home or a mock period one of Georgian, Victorian or Edwardian style. The gardens here will root it to the spot as soon as the builders move out.

An executor sale, Ashton Avenue is being sold by private treaty through Anthony O’Regan of Keane Mahony Smith, who guides it at €700,000-plus.

One of the first viewings this week saw an offer made of €750,000 on the condition it was immediately removed from the market. For transparency’s sake, however, it is open for private treaty negotiations.