Attractive price at Ardnavaha

Former rectory comes with swimming pool and apartments, writes Tommy Barker

WHAT a difference a few years makes. Back in early 2009, West Cork’s Ardnavaha House went publicly up for sale, with vendors’ high hopes of €3m-plus offers, with 15 guest apartments and 11 acres of land with pond included, and a possibility of a further 30 or so acres if the money was right.

Well, it never happened. , The country market continued to follow the economy into the doldrums, and it was overpriced even for the boom times — it’s real value at the time maybe have been in the €1 to €1.5m category.

Now empty but with watchful security, unloved in more recent times and needing work all over again, it comes for sale via local Bandon estate agent Michael Galvin and the DNG network nationally, with a true knock-down price: try €475,000 for size.

That’s for a period, over-basement former rectory on good land, with yard, outbuildings and courtyard swimming pool, plus a grafted-on former hotel bedroom block, converted in subsequent ownership into self-catering guest apartments, let to UK holiday makers in the main.

As it comes back for sale with its hugely adjusted price tag, prospective viewers are being advised by DNG Galvin to allow extra budgets, both for the main house and the attached wing.

Some may even consider demolishing the bedrooms/apartment block — but someone enterprising should be able to turn a buck out of a guest accommodation/education course venture here. In terms of the main house, much of the renovation that had been done in the 1990s and early 2000s has gone backwards.

A lake/pond at the lower grounds is fed by a tributary of the Argideen river, and rooted attributes include lawns and mature gardens, walks, a massive copper beech and, back in the heyday, a tennis court and croquet lawn.

The original house, converted to a hotel in the 1960s, is two-storey over basement, with an outer hall, interconnected suite of reception rooms, dining room, kitchen/conservatory, etc.

Location is near Henry Ford’s birthplace of Ballinascarthy, an hour from Cork city and airport, close to Clonakilty, Kinsale and Courtmacsherry.

VERDICT: Some offer at the price, if you have a plan for it, and plenty of left-over cash.