House of the week

NOT every one-off house built during the boom was a McMansion — for every monster-sized block of a house mindlessly plonked in a field, there’s probably another built just right for its setting, and more discretely placed.

Radharc, pictured here in blue-sky finery, is just one of the latter breed, an antidote to the brashness that looking big and being ‘outstanding in a field’ is the business: in fact, this seaside home practically goes out of its way to look more modest than its 2,500 sq ft.

For those who like to look at well-conceived, smartly-sited houses, the Cork coastline is as good a place as any to start. It seems that Cork Council planners have been amenable to allowing a number of houses (or replacement houses) to be built in quite special and scenic settings — once the design was right. A well-designed house doesn’t have to be a blot on the landscape, or the seascape, and in latter years the Crosshaven and bays’ shorelines are dotted with delights.