Renovation that goes by the book

Tommy Barker says the owners of Fuschia Cottage have extended the property and captured harbour views

FUCHSIA Cottage’s renovation has been done by the book. It is a textbook example of breathing new life into Ireland’s old, traditional building stock.

The owners of this sympathetic Cobh/Great Island retreat have a few renovations under their belts, and pushed out the boat to make sure when they extended this 19th century house they also captured views of Cork harbour.

It has been rented for the past few years, to an appreciative mix that include Irish, Hungarians, Americans and Germans: the manager of the German musical family band the Kellys lived here for a while, while the family themselves lived in the wonderful East Grove House around the Marlogue shoreline, and which is now owned by Loretta Brennan Glucksman.

Fuchsia Cottage is a smart, well-delivered discretely updated yet traditional home with three en suite bedrooms, one at each gable of its T-shape. It has got all of today’s creature comforts, with its centrepiece the original, revealed open hearth (with large cast iron stove) giving an atmosphere that just can’t be made from new.

Selling agent is Joanna Murphy, guiding this exemplary conservation/extension job on its quarter acre site at €375,000. She says it’s going to have huge appeal to anyone who wants an original home, out on it own, with views, and a few minutes drive from Cobh and half an hour from Cork city and airport. She’s targeting relocators, as well as traders down, and for those who want a more detailed look, there’s a handy website www.fourplusfour.com/fuchsiacottage/, complete with virtual tours...all very high-tech for such a simple offering.

Not, just one, but two architects effectively had an input here: Alexander White was the man most directly in charge of overseeing its growth and re-birth, rising from 500 sq ft of almost derelict space (in three tiny room) to the 1,500 sq ft tasteful job seen here.

Fuchsia Cottage was brought back ‘from the grave’ in the 1990s, and the seamless result means it is hard to see what is old, and what’s new, it all seems very much of a period, done in appropriate traditional materials.

The architectural ethos during the noughties seemed to be to keep what was old, and what was new and an intervention distinctly new, thus the many glass, zinc and cedar extensions all overt the country. This work at this fuchsia-strewn home went the gentler, simpler route.

Fuchsia Cottage’s owners (he’s French, she’s proudly local) had worked in the past on a similar modest dwelling, called Ash Cottage, with work there overseen by Maura Shaffrey, a noted conservation architect and author who passed away just before her attentive ‘pupils’ rolled up their sleeves on this house’s salvation.

“This is what happens when you ask an architect to retain a vernacular integrity and to build on that to provide a modern interpretation of the cottage theme; simple, unassuming, fitting in to its surroundings…… you get a result like Fuschia Cottage,” say its quietly proud owners, whose renovations have featured in guides like Atlas of the Irish Rural Landscape, Irish Countryside Buildings and Northern Ireland’s ‘Historic Buildings Council Report 1994-1997.

Maura Shaffrey had argued persuasively that such buildings “had a future, which, with a careful and sympathetic approach, can be upgraded and extended to provide modern standards without spoiling their charm and character resulting in homes which are unique, pleasing and comfortable.”

That’s clearly shown here, where the former tiny, one-room wide roadside home on a quiet Ballymore road has been seamlessly extended on one gable end, and out in a T-shape as well for a much larger, adaptable overall footprint. It embraces a new outdoor southerly-aspected seating area for al fresco dining off the kitchen and dining room’s French doors, in full view of the harbour beneath and beyond.

Materials used have been sympathetic to the originals, so there’s a natural slate roof, lime renders used inside and out with splayed window reveals softened by gentle rounded plastering, painted timber fascias very much in the local Ballymore/Cuskinny style, casement widows in painted Douglas Fir, and tile and old quarry tile floors with exposed internal timbers, as well as pitch pine window boards.

New walls matched the 2’ thickness of the old stone walls, and ceilings are vaulted for extra airiness and authenticity.