Ever dreamt you dwelt in marble halls? – Here’s a site for fresh eyes

EVER dreamt of living in Marble Halls? A lot of hard work, and the right motivation, might turn this unlikely looking option into a bit of a dream in its own right.

A new market arrival is the long-time derelict family home Monvana, in Marble Hall Park, with its best selling attribute being location and site size. A reasonable guide price of c €300,000 helps a lot too.

Setting is at the very start of Cork’s Douglas and Ballinlough roads, a niche residential park of mid-1990s homes in a variety of styles, shapes and sizes.

On possibly the largest of the sites, Monvana is the first house in on the left hand side, which means its rear boundary is the wall separating it from the South City Link Road, a busy four-lane link to City Hall, a quarter of a mile along as the commuter flies.

So, here’s a house with a vital bit of busy infrastructure on one long boundary (triple glazing will earn its keep) and the building itself is in fairly rag order. But, guess what? It is going to sell, and be widely viewed. Dreamed about, even.

The lyrics of a gypsy girl’s dream from the 1840s light opera The Bohemian Girl might provide some inspiration:

“I dreamt that I dwelt in marble halls/With vassals and serfs at my side/And of all who assembled within those walls/That I was the hope and the pride.”

Only, instead of serfs and vassals, think masons, carpenters and plumbers by your side.

A site size of about a quarter of an acre is the key to Marble Hall Park dreams: some will dream of renovation, other of demolition and replacement buildings, others maybe of speculation – after all, the chance to make a few bob on a resuscitated market hasn’t gone away, you know.

Auctioneer Michael O’Donoghue of O’Donoghue Clarke is selling the detached four-bed needing full overhaul, and creative imagining.

As it is set to the thin end of its wedge-shape site, some may see scope for a second dwelling (maybe for a family member/offspring, or future retirement option) while the most opportunistic will speculate on even a few more units, genteel, upmarket townhouses perhaps.

It all will come down to a buyer’s bankability, and planning discussions too as to what may come to pass here.

Estate agent Michael O’Donoghue suspects he will be busy here with viewings, and from a wide cross-section, from dreamers to relocators, not afraid of a challenge, and from small builders to larger builders in reduced circumstance. After all, the €250k/300k guide is only the price of small apartment two years ago. It’s what you choose to spend after that will be the poser.

Back, then, to the Marble Hall song from the Bohemian Girl, which has been referred to in James Joyce’s writings, song in a Laurel and Hardy movie and more recently recorded by Enya: “I dreamt that suitors sought my hand; That knights upon bended knee, And with vows no maiden heart could withstand, They pledg’d their faith to me.

And I dreamt that one of that noble host Came forth my hand to claim. But I also dreamt, which charmed me most, That you lov’d me still the same...”