Good fit for growing family

A MOVE back to Cork brings a fully-renewed Laois farmhouse (handily near the Cork-Dublin rail line at Ballybrophy) to market.

And the one-time thatched cottage now a fully-fledged and upgraded two-storey home, also has a detached garage/home office, and several large stone-built outbuildings with further potential, all for a reduced asking price of €220,000, via agents Property Partners William Mansfield who say “it’s perfect for a growing family that wants something more than just a standard three-bed home.”

It will also appeal to a wider market that wants the clear charms of an old house, with more modern creature comforts, a half acre of gardens, and the ability to work from home thanks to high-speed Ethernet links.

Called Monamondra House, it is originally part of a trio of houses known as the first, middle and upper houses of Monamondra, owned by the local Stanley farming family for up to 300 years.

This one, originally known as the upper house, is said to date to the early 1700s and was a thatched cottage (see pic), remaining in that form until the early 1900s, converted by occupants Bob and Elizabeth Stanley into the two storey here today. They had 10 children, the last in 1933,and it was 2004 before the next child, Erica Sally, daughter of vendors Gary and Sarah Rhodes arrived on the scene.

The Rhodes (who ran their Equestrian Surfaces Ireland business from here) bought the property in 2003 did the conservation and transformation work seen here.

New and old combine well inside this three-bed, two reception rooms with things like a glass block wall in a shower room, filtered water in the Belfast sink supply, 11-jet step-up Jacuzzi bath in the main bathroom, and plumbing for an outdoor hot tub in the garden, where there’s also decking and a BBQ area, sandstone patio, pergoal with clematis, lawns...plus vegetable patch and compost corner for the active, hands-on good life.