A picturesque house that paints a thousand words

This west Cork oasis is a feast for the eyes, which the public can drool over at next weekend’s open days, writes Tommy Barker

IT would be difficult not to be inspired to artistic endeavours when you come across the garden oasis of this west Cork home — but it wasn’t always so picturesque.

The family home of artist Geraldine O’Sullivan and Swiss-born teacher Alex Streuli, it’s a home that has evolved (with an unerring eye and sensibility) for its growing family. It developed by dint of long summers (!the teaching job’s upside) of manual toil, and thousands of wheelbarrow-loads of earth-works as the gardens are landlocked in such a way that you can’t get a digger in to its most secret parts.