House of the Week

Know the way some houses unexpectedly grow on you?

Well, 2 Millfield, a hideaway house off Cork’s College Road, is one of those. One minute spent inside, and you’re intrigued.

It isn’t even that you have to see past anything to see potential, it’s already here, just in need of scrubbing up. In a day when so many houses of this late 1940s vintage need significant overhauls, the good news at No 2 is that all the basics here are good, you could get away with repainting, maybe a bit of wallpaper, and some decent furniture.

This detached, 1940/50s house is one of a trio of broadly similarly designed homes off the western end of College Road, where it meets up with the Magazine Road by a small roundabout. The three detached houses back onto Orchard Road, and are south-facing in front. The setting is private, once you accept you share with two neighbours (one of the three was offered for sale in 2007 at €800,000-plus).

There’s a touch of the architectural mongrel to No 2: it has a Dutch mansard style roof with odd pitches, with a rounded almost Art Deco flat roof section behind over the stair landing, and its front facade is four-square, with replacement pvc windows in situ. Other expenditure includes new tarmac drive (though some downchutes are now missing obvious drains) pvc fascia and sofits, central heating via a bulk gas tank, a fairly modern kitchen, and two en suite bedrooms in all, one set in a largely private rear ground floor annex, another upstairs which is pretty good with a decent enough double shower in its en suite. There are two other first floor bedrooms, and good-sized main bathroom, and a quirky ground floor guest WC.

No 2 is bright front and back, with two south facing reception rooms with fireplaces: the larger has a double aspect, while the smaller, a 13’ by 12’ dining room, has unusual columns which anyone with a taste for interior design might like to work with.

Then, there’s quality workmanship and materials like the oak parquet floor in the hall, a nice curving handrail for the carpeted stairs, while most of the rest of the house’s main rooms have polished old floor boards for a bit of shabby-chic look. Ceiling heights are a tad above standard too.

Selling agent is Brian Olden of Cohalan Downing, who seeks offers around €420,000, and he’s pretty confident of how it will be received. It has a location near UCC, the Bon Secours, CIT, County Hall and CUH/Wilton, is private, and has scope for parking front and back, plus a detached garage behind in the wide garden (the triangular site widens as it deepens).

VERDICT: It’s going to repay almost any extra input, even a lick of paint. Great bones and location.