Right time to pounce on ready-to-move-into home

CHOCOLATE Box and oh so Surrey Downs, Endsleigh is a film-set example of the arts and crafts style and was built between the wars by the Coveney family, builders and surveyors.

The estate off Cork’s Douglas Road, is distinctive in its Tudor-bethan facades and half-timbered gables. Surrounded by manicured grounds and quaint timber gates with suitable names, this small cul-de-sac is resonant of a different time and place — little England in Ireland’s green and pleasant land.

But don’t be taken in: the old casements are now in PVC, the back of most houses wear large sunrooms and extensions, and the creeper-clad eaves provide shelter for top range motors. Old Endsleigh is definitely part of the new Ireland.

And like the new Ireland, its values have fallen from the stratospheric levels of Tiger times.

Parkgarriffe, a large, detached five-bed weighing in at 2,400 square feet was launched in 2007, just as the chill winds blew.

Then, it carried a guide of €1.8 million, had strong offers near that, and considering other venerable properties on the Douglas Road reached levels of over €2m, it was fairly pitched for the then current, if skewed values.

Now, the property is back on the market with Maurice Cohalan of Cohalan Downing and Associates, who says the house is there to be sold.

He’s seeking offers in excess of €875,000 for the five-bed which is in move-in condition.

With a perfect rear aspect, really lovely planting and enough rooms for a brood to run around in, Parkgarriffe is a perfect family home.

It combines original features, modern extensions, (there’s a fine sun room and an enlarged kitchen with four-oven Aga at the rear), with a quaint, but cosy feel.

The house is bone dry, bright and clean and could be comfortably lived-in in the morning. A lick of paint is the minimum required.

It has been vacated by its vendors in favour of acres of pasture new, and remains to be snapped up by canny buyers.

As the asking price is almost half of the original now would be the right time to pounce for a house of this calibre and location.