Plain sailing at Moonrock

With its dazzling views of Cork harbour, Tommy Barker says Moonrock has a fine array of features sure to impress

Everyday is a different day here, there’s always something changing or on the move, say the owners of Moonrock, one of south Cork’s most specially-placed homes.

On the firmest of firm foundations, but on a steeply dropping coastal site with the sea beneath and in full and unavoidable view, Moonrock is a recently finished family or corporate executive home, with an unstinting specification, and a site position to die for.

It is on the water side of the Coast Road between Fountainstown and Myrtleville beaches, a few miles from sailing mecca Crosshaven, and with all of Cork harbour’s amenities on its doorstep. Off to the east is the mouth of Cork harbour, with Roches Point lighthouse hoved into view, so every ship and yacht doing any port and harbour activity can be glimpsed. Finished in the past three years, on the site of a far more modest former home which it happily replaced, Moonrock is a 4,000 sq ft, upside down home, with discreet, modest facades in natural materials helping to blend it into its heather and gorse-strewn slopes.

Selling agent is Sheila O’Flynn of Sherry FitzGerald, guiding it at €1.5 million and reckoning it will bring keen viewings from the Cork market, and beyond. This stretch of elevated coast road is slowly getting some exciting marine-themed architecture and homes, as choice sites occasionally get snapped up by appreciative buyers.

In one of the very best sites, and with 1.5 acres, Moonrock will make a great family base or an expansive home for some CEO.

Traditionally built, it is clad externally in Galway stone, with cut limestone cills, and calm, black alu-clad double glazed windows, with a quality oak finish internally.

Just about every last detail has been considered from day one, and there’s full planning permission for a full-frontal/wrap-around glass balcony which will be a real scene setter. Proper foundations pads for supports for that extensive balcony and glass balusters are already in place, making for minimal disruption while it is being done.

Entry point, once you slalom down the paved approach drive to the sheltered car-port, is at the upper level, straight in to a large and airy hall with glazed doors opening up the scene-stealing views through the big lounge and its back wall of floor-to-ceiling glass.

In any lesser setting, a room like this would draw attention for its size and proportions, quality wide plank oak floor, or huge solid fuel stove and polished timber mantle: here, it’s just the vertigo-inducing view, pure and simple.

This house’s upper deck is largely open plan, certainly bright and view and light oriented, with an exceptional kitchen/dining space blending forwards to a family/TV spot, and viewing spot, while the opposite, western end of the house is home to a play room, but equally it would make a great home office space.

The kitchen here is solid oak, made by the House of Coolmore, hand-painted with fine finishes, topped with speckled granite, as is the large island. Heating is underfloor, throughout, and is both effective and efficient — so much so that the two feature stoves in the main living areas are rarely lit.

A simple, highly varnished mahogany handrail guides the steps to the lower level, home to four pristine en suite bedrooms, all simply styled and two of them themed for a young son and daughter, while the master bedroom is penthouse standard: it includes a walk-in closet, and a great large bathroom with double-ended oval bath, primely set for sea-gazing, and a separate, big, drenching over-sized shower plus twin sinks. Sanitary ware is high-quality Villeroy and Boch, with various extensive bathroom tiling. The palette of finish materials is deliberately simple, but universally high-end.

To the back of the house there’s a large games/media room, wired for drop-down home cinema projector and suitable for lots of other uses.

That games room is under the roofed-over car-part by the front door, and in fact the paving here has piping underneath in case the car port is ever made over to extra living space.

Provision has also been made for solar panels for water heating, and further forward planning is evidenced by the fact the lower tiers of the gardens have had power lines run down to them for outdoor entertainment/BBQ spots, and braver souls can go the extra few yards down the scree to the shoreline for a dip in the Atlantic.