A tasteful treat

Ardgroom is an updated classic and elegant home in a perennially popular location, writes Tommy Barker

Bearing the name of a village on Cork’s Beara Peninsula is Ardgroom, a period-style semi-detached suburban city home. And, according to its selling agent Andrew Donoghue of Casey and Kingston, it is one of the best of the main Douglas Road’s older housing stock with “elegance, taste and exceptional attention to detail”.

Ardgroom also has the more modern trappings of increased insulation and a new condenser boiler, it has been underpinned and drains have been replaced, so it will stand up well for another clutch of decades. Now, the 1,800 sq ft house appears to have the best of old and new, plus location, in spades, as well as a very pleasant back garden, with its horticultural credentials signalled from the outset, with an eye-catching timber pergola spanning the front gates.

The interior feel is of respect for the past, with the original patterned tiled floor a shining example of what’s to follow. Other original features include some oak floors, fireplaces in the two reception rooms, and in two of the three bedrooms where there are slender, upright cast-iron examples.

The south-facing front reception room, with oak fire surround and mantle, has a bay window and oak floor, the slightly smaller rear dining room has a marble fireplace, and there’s also a breakfast room linked to the kitchen, just part-partitioned by a retained wall section housing the kitchen’s range cooker. The kitchen itself is a character space, with vaulted and double ceilings and is part of a sizeable rear extension overlooking the pristine back gardens, with a neat side patio/terrace for evening sun.

There’s an over-standard main family bathroom, as the current owners who’ve been here over a decade reduced the original bedrooms tally from four to three to allow for a larger wash space: well up to modern spec, and fully tiled, it has a corner bath and a separate, large corner shower.

Ardgroom will appeal to those looking for a quality home in the Douglas area, says Mr Donoghue, noting that it is impressing early viewers.

He’s seeing some familiar faces here already: he’s just gone ‘sale agreed’ on a Ballincurrig cul de sac estate four-bed semi needing an overhaul, with a prized west-facing back garden. That do-er upper had a €295,000 AMV, and was bid above that, to fetch around €310,000. Also just sold on the main Douglas Road closer to the city, by Woolhara, is a Victorian semi-d in very good order, for a price in the mid €400,000s via Sherry FitzGerald

VERDICT: Ardgroom’s fully upgraded, and while the BER is ‘pending,’ it should be an easy to keep and to heat home of considerable character.