House of the week

THE harbour views from 1, Woodside are pretty special — but effectively they were a trade-down/retirement compromise for the house’s current owner, Mrs Mary Porteous.

She was the woman of the house of the famous Bunnyconnellan hotel, restaurant and bar by the mouth of Cork harbour. Together with her late husband J McNeil ‘Jock’ Porteous from Renfrewshire in Scotland, they had built up and ran the Myrtleville seaside tourism venture best-knows as Bunny’s, from 1949 to 1976.

“It was a tough business. Hotel life isn’t the easiest, but you met some very interesting people,” she recalls. During her time, Bunny’s attracted visitors like Gypsy Moth IV’s solo sailor Sir Francis Chichester, Eamon DeValeral, actors like Boris Karloff and Sylvia Syms, and a host more Hollywood names associated with the Cork Film Festival, as well as Irish luminaries like Noel Purcell.

Bunny’s (it previously was called the MirMar) did weddings, parties, celebrations, and is still going strong, in a spectacular cliff-edge setting, now in O’Brien family ownership.

After she retired Mrs Mary Porteous crossed the road from Bunny’s in Myrtleville to 1 Woodside, an early 1900s semi-detached village on temperate gardens, a house which had been built by her grandfather John Sisk.

More elevated and set back a tad from Bunny’s prime perch, it nonetheless has truly spectacular coastline, beach, rock and Roches Point lighthouse views — which will surely lure in the curious and the romantic, and help it to sell.

A bit special in many ways, No 1 is new to market with Ann O’Mahony of Sherry FitzGerald, who guides it at €220,000, and who rightly raves about the setting and its private, elevated garden.

Up above the start of the narrow section of road leaving Myrtleville and its beach toward Poulgorm and the Coast Road to Fountainstown, it is reached via two short bursts of steps with a helpful handrail, and the front and side gardens are packed with unabashed colour and appropriately blowsy seasonal blooms.

There’s more ground rising above the house, for those who want to reclaim it for even more elevated views. For inspiration, the next door neighbour’s massive garden rising a hundred feet more in altitude behind, and done by dint of decades of labour and lugging, shows just what will thrive in this coastal locale.

But, back to the house in question: No 1 wears its century-plus of age pretty well, with a smashing front sitting room, with a deep bay window and open fireplace with quirky copper decor decals.

A fine, sunny day might lure you out for a better view; other than that, just plonk down in a comfortable chair, and get watching eastward to Roches Point, and southwards to the wider seas.

Across the hall is a second reception/dining room, again with fireplace, cast iron this time, and a couple of the three overhead bedrooms also have fireplaces.

There’s also a rear bedroom, a simple old fashioned kitchen with pantry off it, while the main and only bathroom is also downstairs, in a rear section. To anyone who rented a seaside home in the ‘60s, it will all seem and smell familiar.

The roofs and dormers all look straight enough, windows have been replaced, but the place does need upgrading, damp-proofing and insulation, and there’s more than enough original charm to encourage a new owner to work on it sympathetically.

VERDICT: Crosshaven’s bays are hugely popular as a full-time residential location, No 1 Woodside will fit equally as a summer or full-time home.