Chalet, or shall you not?

FANCY building castles in the air, or pinning them down to the ground, at Cork’s coastal Coolmaine?

Between Kinsale and Clonakilty and across the water from Coolmaine castle that was home to the late Roy Disney there are a couple of plots for sale with a suitably Disneyesque history of disappearing and reappearing buildings.

Buildings temporarily erected for the 1902 Cork International Exhibition went on to have an afterlife, with several dismantled and erected elsewhere.

The extended 1902/1903 exhibition on the Lee, on what’s now Fitzgerald Park, had an array of pavilions. Among them were two, vaguely Norwegian-styled buildings which formed the exhibition’s Chalet Restaurant.

The then-owner of Kilbrittain Castle, Lady Riversdale, had the two chalet buildings re-sited next to each other in Harbour View, Kilbrittain, and sold them on in 1922. One made its way, again, to Cork harbour to Currabinny, bought by wine merchant Dominic Daly as a holiday home, opposite the entrance to Crosshaven. The other building was bought as a summer home by a Bandon family, the Walshs, who used in until 1951.

It changed hands several more times, and for a while traded as the Horse Rock Hotel.

It was bought in 1970 by Cork city builder Denis McCarthy, but it burned down in 1973.

Now, its site, plus another plot across the road, is offered for sale by a McCarthy family member.

Clonakilty auctioneer Martin Kelleher is offering the elevated, former hotel site of 2.7 acres with road frontage on three sides, while across the scenic coastal road, he has a further 3.3 acres between the sea and the road. He sets an October 22 date for offers by tender. Planning permissions in any case will be tight, but a suitable design might sway the day. The 2.7 acre, former hotel site is guided at €90,000, the 3.3 acres with more stringent planning issues (if any prospect at all) is guided at €45,000: at the height of the property boom, the 2.7 acre site had an offer of €500,000, subject to a grant of planing permission.

They are offered ‘as-is,’ with the lure of attractive prices. There’s local and Cork city interest so far and they may catch the attention of those further afield with an eye to the main chance, aided by appropriate design. Chalet, or shall you not?