Timeless and well-designed to stand the test of time

BUILT just too early for all the flashness of the boom-to-bust era, the big family homes at Berkeley, off Cork city’s Carr’s Hill outside Douglas are unflashy, timeless and well-designed houses, which are standing the test of time.

Now about 10 years old, there’s only 10 houses in this scheme built by the big, Douglas landowning and livestock family the Horgans.

And, in the interim years, there have only been one or two resales, with prices topping €1 million in the mid-decade, dropping to asking prices of €875,000 in 2007.

Now, No 4 – which has been family-occupied from day one – is new to market, with auctioneer Anne O’Mahony of Sherry FitzGerald guiding €675,000, showing a full 40% drop from peak. She says there’s very few modern houses of this calibre, offering easy living, in the greater Douglas area this year, and viewings have just started with a feelgood feedback.

Showing well, No. 4’s a fine, square 2,200 sq ft five-bed/two-en-suite home, with a great flowing ground-floor layout with interconnecting reception rooms to the left, family room to the right, and a large kitchen/dining conservatory at its very core. Plus, there’s a utility, and guest WC.

The secure back garden steps down over two levels, and slopes down into a wooded glen with a stream by the boundary which flows down to, and through, Douglas village: there’s a wooded walk along this route too, to the village as an alternative to Carr’s Hill for the cars.

As the back of this house faces south, the placing here of a glazed, pitched roof conservatory leading into the open kitchen/dining room floods the house with light, and makes the space work superbly well.

No 4 has fireplaces in two of the three reception rooms, left for use as open fires but gas is also plumbed.

With insulation levels recently increased (though BER cert’s still awaited) No 4’s a walk-in job, and any changes to be made will be discretionary. Case in point? The owners put in quality laminate timber floors 10 years ago, expecting to upgrade to solid oak or some such a few years later on. The floors are unscathed and unmarked, despite taking the wear and tear of a growing family over the years. So, they’ve stayed. Pragmatism rules.