HOUSE OF THE WEEK

“THE best-fed bees in Cork,” says the owner of Tiburon, of the blessing of a distinctive 1970s house on an acre of gardens, created by time, hard work, and knowledgeable planting.

Just as everything has a season, so too does a family’s use of a property: the couple behind the Trojan work here have uprooted, and moved on to a smaller home that could hardly be more different — they’ve down-sized to a brand-new apartment, across the city, swapping one hillside setting for another. At least their apartment find is one with decent balconies for planters, but it’s a far cry nonetheless from a verdant acre like this. Our gardening writer Charlie Wilkins says it’s “a dream garden in a fantastic setting. It has a collection of rare, unusual, and mature specimen trees, shrubs and perennials, grown by owners who spared neither time or expense in bring it to a high horticultural standard.”

Retired solicitor Nicholas Hughes, and his wife Noreen, shared a passion for gardening, and adapted a single-storey American house design when they built anew at Burke’s Hill, Tivoli, Cork, nearly 40 years ago.

They later put a pitched roof on top of the flat steel deck roof they had started out with. The original roof is still there, and it had 1” of cork for insulation. But, really, apart from noting the large room sizes and the internal brightness of the house’s fairly generous floorplan (down to careful positioning on the site for views and aspect), most eyes now will be drawn to the gardens, and to the eye-catcher, a gourd-shaped outdoor swimming pool and the harbour views from this south-facing hill perch, 300’ above river level.

The name Tiburon was seized on after a visit to Tiburon, California. They were told it was Spanish for pines: they later learned meant a type shark, but the name stuck.

Years of feeding the land (after first planting a shelter belt) with horse manure meant huge fertility, and that plus an acid soil means an abundance of rhododendron, azaleas, magnolias, camellias and more now jostle for space and appreciation.

Then, there’s the structure and reference points supplied by things like Scots Pines and other pines, birch trees, eucalyptus, acers, mimosas and a whole host more, plus hostas galore, and drifts of snowdrops, daffodils, tulips, lilies and heathers, all heaven scented and much loved by birds and bees.

Bee hives have been taken away - but will repay replacement with buckets of honey, while potatoes have been freshly planted for a summer crop, with fruit, veg and herb beds in one of the garden’s themed sections.

Estate agent Hugh McPhilips of Marshs has two formally typed-up pages of what’s been planted, with the particularly fine specimens rated from one to three stars by the informed owners.

There’s something for everyone, and for every season, but it’s not an overwhelming task to maintain, and has a sort of happy equilibrium found for itself.

The house, ringed around with crazy paving and patios, is no slouch either, a big L-shaped 2,000sq ft family home with the main room a decent 24’ by 22’ (and with a Connemara marble fireplace) and this room, the dining room and adjoining kitchen (with of-its-time serving hatch, of course) are placed for best garden views. Several rooms have French door access to the grounds, and there are four bedrooms, one with en suite.

There’s wide corridors, and deep sheltering eaves to the eastern side off the bedrooms, several have garden access. The double-aspect kitchen links via the double garage into a south-facing glasshouse, for this year, and next year’s seedlings. The gardens need a brisk tidying up now — and, if you’re not enthused by that prospect, then Tiburon isn’t the place for you.