Glandore home harbours Olympic horse hopes
IT HAS been a busy enough two years since Debby and Martin Ewing bought Baywood House, above glorious Glandore.
Having searched for ages for (and having found) — the perfect Irish coastal property with land for their horses, they’re very unexpectedly heading off again, to a dream job back in their native UK. But, during their sojourn in one of West Cork’s most special settings, they’ve done a full, quality overhaul on the 5,000 sq ft 1990s built hill-top house, landscaped the extra grounds, and brought the equestrian side of the package up to the highest standards.
Oh, and they’ve a horse which looks likely to quality for the London Olympics.
That’s not bad going for a couple of years digging in to Irish life, along with forays to the UK and Continent for work and eventing.
When it comes to horses, Debby has written the book — about 15 horse-related titles in all, inclduing the Encyclopedia of Horses, under her maiden name Debby Sly, and horses are still the focus of the couple’s life. Dappled grey Stormhill Kossack (called Devon for short) is their top animal, and this nine-year-old is currently ridden in three-day events internationally by the Italian Giovanni Ugolotti, who’s waiting for the nod to ride him for Italy in this summer’s Olympics in London.
The facilities the Ewings have put in at Baywood to keep horses like this in the comfort to which they’re been well-bred is impressive: two top-quality stable blocks, with five boxes, choice paddocks on much of the nine acres, there’s a pond, and a mint-order new riding arena or menage, 47m by 33m, with sand and milled rubber surface, distracting only for the views and vista from it.
But, the very best views are from the front rooms of Baywood itself: they’re simply spectacular, changing with the weather and skies, but this month still tinged with a huge poignancy — the trawler Tit Bonhomme foundered on the rock Adam Island, in full view of these harbouring hills, with the loss of five lives. The local community of Union Hall and Glandore distinguished itself in it unrelenting searches, over weeks, for the bodies of the victims.
Baywood House faces south and west, prime for spectacular skies and often-cruel seas, and daily there’s boats, pleasure craft and working vessels, on the water to track.
While the house already was set for views, they’ve been added to or re-framed in the Ewings’ couple of years here, where they changed windows, especially the front apex gable which is now fully glazed, making for a new bedroom space upstairs with a wall of glass. To create a room to carry those views, they opened the ceilings up to the roof’s apex, with a few feature beams exposed.
As Baywood House comes up for sale guiding €1.3 million this weekend with Maeve McCarthy of Charles P McCarthy auctioneers in Skibbereen, it is in great heart. Fully redecorated, it also has had a number of rooms re-configured, there’s new zoned heating, a new kitchen, upgraded bathrooms and a host more improvements, inside and out. The work schedules must have been fairly full-on, not to mind caring for precious horses at the same time.
Built large, in a bit of a staggered dormer fashion, with some high peaks under salvaged slate roofs taken from an old coastguard station, it’s a hugely embracing and accommodating house, with five en suite bedrooms and a selection of large living spaces. Plus, there’s an integrated garage/workshop, separating the main house from a two-story guest apartment.
High above Glandore at Rushanes, the house is reached after a long, landscaped and stone-walled private entrance drive, wending through paddocks and past the stable and menage. Then, unless you park to the side to keep an eye on the views, you enter a private sheltering courtyard under a stone arch. Since fetching up here, the Ewings ringed this courtyard space to the back with huge sandstone rocks (averaging two tonnes each) as retaining rock armour for the higher land behind. It was only when the machinery came to place the boulders there was a dawning realisation that the digger couldn’t fit under the arch. Oh oh! Simple solution? Dig out the ground under the arch, work away, and replace it later.
Around the front of the house is a deep patio and seating space, home to a four-person hot-tub, while there’s full planning recently granted for an extension to the east, with a raised walkway from the end of the house to tiered gardens.
Inside, Baywood is quite individual. The entrance hall is double height, with a galleried landing over, stairs to the left, with spindles and newel posts in rich elm, and there’s a solid wood stove to set a warming tone, aided and abetted by lush, new Heritage colours on many of the rough-plastered internal walls. Most of the house’s ground floor is in reclaimed and sanded narrow strip maple, and joinery levels throughout are high.
There’s a brand new kitchen here in two-tone blue and cream, from Hannons of Ballygarvan, with creamy granite tops, a handy boiling water dispensing tap, and an Aga range, naturally at home to warm saddle sore rears after a day out on the hack.
Auctioneer Maeve McCarthy says Baywood “provides a rare opportunity to combine excellent accommodation with all the wonderful opportunities that the magnificent coastline and surrounding countryside offers, be it for sailing, walking, equestrianism, or simply relaxing in the renowned temperate climate of West Cork.” While not all prospective buyers will be as seriously into horses as the current owners, it’s a fairly unique lifestyle offering to the year’s market, she adds.
Other accommodation for human inhabitants includes two reception rooms, a library, a family room, a dining room with raised open fireplace and exposed beam ceiling, pantry, utility with Belfast sink, boot/mud room, and they’re all in tip-top, freshly painted order.
Overhead, all of the five bedrooms have their own bathrooms, with baths, and there’s even a character to the space around the landing thanks to the lofty gallery feel and changing ceiling pitches. One of the bedrooms has an external gable wall staircase to the east garden and yards for semi-independent access.
Apart from the 5,000 sq ft of living space, there’s another 400 sq ft or so of high ceilinged space in the very practical garage, next to a self-contained lofted one-bed guest apartment to round out the package.
With its mix of location, setting, views, acreage, space and quality, Baywood House is going to have an appeal to those buying at the region’s upper echelons. While buyers and sales around the €1.3m level are scarce, Glandore has always had a special cachet, especially for UK buyers, and the price equates to little more than £1m in sterling terms to this niche.
VERDICT: It’s a walk-in/ride-in, sail-in job. Saddle up.
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