A country retreat for everyday use

THERE’S a lot to take in at this Ballyshoneen country home. With a couple of acres of pristine grounds, guest cottage, tennis court, an original barn, and outbuildings, it is place where, if you lived here, you could happily lose yourself.

Imagine coming here at the end of the working week, pottering about the gardens — and then finding it is nearly Monday morning, and another ‘holiday’ weekend has ended.

Just west of Cork city — five minutes from the Ballincollig bypass, near Ballyburden — this is a former 19th century farmhouse that has kept a great deal of character, but in which huge investment has been made.

It was last bought in 1985, when it was part of a dairy farm owned for decades by the Buttimer family, and while it has kept a basic outline of the original home, it has been upgraded steadily.

It has a five-bedroomed, main, two-storey residence, with one of its two en-suite bedrooms in a private, adaptable courtyard-framing wing, as well as a separate, 1,200 sq ft, two-bedroomed cottage facing across the pristine, tranquil gardens.

It has a haven appeal, with a sympathetic cluster of buildings and can accommodate the largest of families, while not being too big for a couple who wants to throw themselves into enjoying a homestead on the edge of Cork city.

Gardeners will love it: it has a small polytunnel, veg and potato beds, raised herb beds, and a variety of discrete areas for growing, or just sun-bathing. Another detached building is home to a large, practical workshop, office and stores. Throw in the four-column hay barn, hidden in mature trees by the low, stone-wall entrance, and there is a building here for every purpose. The vendors have used the barn for cars, and boats, and furniture, and a new owner might have horses in mind — though the highly developed and maintained two acres is short of plain old pasture.

Auctioneer Dominic Daly is selling this quite, pristine Ballyshoneen home for offers around €1.5m. It doesn’t shout its status, and didn’t fall into the Celtic Tiger bling, rather it is low-key, restrained, and tastily finished: interior designer Conan Ivers, of TV3 fame, had an input, but the vendor also has done design courses and knows her stuff.

Originally a one-room wide home, it has extended skirts, front and back, to broaden and deepen its presence, with subtle changes of levels to delineate functions — like in the dining room/sun room addition, with windows overlooking the sheltered front garden and its lush, predominantly pale planting and wide patios. Garden flood-lighting adds to the evening meal-time experience, one imagines, while the very core of this house is the large, centrally-placed kitchen, with walls upon walls of highly-organised storage units, and a central, granite-topped island with lighting rig overhead. It’s a serious space for a cook, graced by a large, four-oven creamy Aga, with companion electric oven alongside.

Already a long dwelling, it has been made even longer, and now the formal drawing room is down at one end, with windows on three walls for day-long lighting, and there’s also a more cosy, evening study/family TV room, plus a very bright private study by the dining room.

All of the copious space is now highly practical, as well as aesthetic, with a large laundry and hotpress, pantry/larder, and guest WC all slotting into space. There are two staircases, one in formal hardwood, another a secondary spiral stairs to the master-suite end upstairs.

And, there’s a long link corridor with loads of storage, leading to an almost self-contained, en-suite bedrooms, suitable for an independent teen, grandparent or au pair (though there’s the stand-alone cottage as well, for extra guest use, or hobbies).

Upstairs, all four of the first-floor bedrooms are individual, and characterful, all are doubles in size, and the end master bedroom is a real suite affair, with private study to one side, and there’s also a separate dressing room, and an en-suite bathroom to round out the independence of this withdrawing space.

For its €1.5m asking price, this Ballyshoneen family spread par excellence (main house, guest house, great work rooms, tennis court, barn, gardens) offers a whole lot of options, being close to the city, yet very much a retreat apart. It has up to seven bedrooms, but the overall floor area hasn’t really been calculated out between the various buildings. “I don’t sell homes by the square foot,” says its selling agent, Dominic Daly. Quite.