Stirring fantasies of living like the quality

THERE’S nothing like a long, lingering driveway to stir fantasies of living like the quality.

Throw in 200-year-old Lebanese cedars, a tall weeping ash, gob-smacking views of water and woodland and you have some of the attributes of Killahora House, Glounthaune, on the edge of Cork city.

It isn’t often a farm manages to straddle three property brackets, and especially not in a downturn, but this is one. It has land, house and, whisper it, development potential.

Killahora House, the home place of the late Martin Corry TD, is on the market with Frank Walsh of Property Partners O’Mahony Walsh for a cool, €2 million, and while that may seem a trifle inflated, let’s just break it down.

The land is superb – that’s a given, this is south-facing, gently sloping multi-purpose farmland – the best of it.

Then, it’s adjacent to the boundary for Glounthaune, with its rail link and services, which means it has development potential in the long-term.

Then, there’s the house. Sitting proud on its own hillside, this is an unpretentious, unprepossessing property that wouldn’t take too much trouble to put right.

Built at the turn of the last century and lived in until recently, this is five-bedroomed property with a bit of a higgledy-piggledy layout.

But for all that, it appears sound and would repay some interior architecture.

Because it replaced an older dwelling on the site, there’s an unusual set-up at the back.

Sheds run straight up to the north wall of the property and form part of a lovely, square old courtyard at the rear.

This is where it gets really interesting for those with a love of crumbling buildings and outhouses – because there’s a rake of them here.

Across the yard are the old farm labourer’s quarters, with inglenook and fire crane still in place and the most basic of staircases to the loft. There are two lofted outhouses and a range of other stone sheds and behind this sheltered square is the old haggard and orchard, with access from a farm gate.

The house, including the drive and a run down gate lodge, eight acres and the farm yard are all included as one lot at a rough guide of €650,000.

The remainder of the land is being offered in two lots and the entire farm, with 100 acres and masses of road frontage, will be offered at €2 million.

In a climate where mattress money needs a safe haven – where better to put it than into the ground?