House of the week
Originally rather grandly — or just honestly? — called Grand View, this mid-1900s home is new to market for the first time in decades and could be a cracker of a purchase.
Seeking offers around €550,000, estate agent Andrew Moore reckons that “it’s probably the best house in this most favoured area.” It’s got the uppermost and largest site, thus the highest elevation and the best views — and has been fully redecorated, wired and replumbed in the past two years, gratis of work needed after a burst water tank in a recent frosty winter.
As a consequence, Knockmahon has a very surprising freshness to its interior, its current caring owner had lived in Newfoundland for years, and brought her Canadian ’open house’ feel to her Cork city home on its one-sixth of an acre gardens.
Light flows fully through the core from its south-facing large front windows, opening up the most incredible views down over the city, the quays and docks and, as a rare boast from its hillside eyerie, it looks down on Ireland’s tallest building, the Elysian.
Sidney Park runs just beneath Collins Barracks and Knockmahon, with its sloping and terraced gardens, is just below the Camp Field. Houses here in Sidney Park were built in the 1930s and ‘40s on the site of the former British Government House and the military district Governor’s house in a range of brave, ‘new’ architectural styles.
As the park has matured and aged, houses here get modernising makeovers on re-sales, and once again there’s some interesting architecture gone on, even when sites are tight.
Knockmahon has a bonus on the side too, for enterprising buyers: a long, narrow walled-in strip of a site has been acquired, and planning granted for a tall, heavily glazed (designed by James Leahy) build on this adjoining side footprint. It would necessitate also removing the side wing of Knockmahon as it stands, but allowing then for two detached homes on the combined plot, at the very uppermost end of this private cul de sac park.
It’s an option; or, new owners could garden it, put in glass houses between the high, facing sandstone walls, put down drills of spuds, or just let kids roam in their private world, accessed at present by a narrow gate.
As it stands, Knockmahon is a walk-in job, with one ground floor en suite bedroom off a large rear utility, and with its own front garden access. Upstairs, all bar one of the four bedrooms have south-facing views and the master bed is en suite, with a private balcony off it for view and sun-soaking. It’s a pleasant adjunct.
There’s a front formal room, rear dining room via two arches, a pantry/den/bar, and while the kitchen’s to the back of the house, thanks to some judicious wall-knocking it looks right through a commanding-sized open family living room to the views.
The bones and floor plan are all ace here, light, bright and upbeat, and while new occupants might want to upgrade the basic-enough kitchen units, they’ll also appreciate original touches, like the terrazzo hall floor, fireplaces and sheer sense of local grounding: there’s a sandstone outcrop just behind the house as a rockery reminder of its hilly roots.
Living in a spot like this is the best of city life, with St Patrick’s Street a downhill slalom away, and there’s an array of good schools almost on the doorstep, so the car commute (even though there’s parking for a small fleet) can be done away with too.
VERDICT: Top of the world - and you’d know it.
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