It could grow on you

With a polytunnel in place and summer on the way, Glenageare comes calling, writes Tommy Barker

The good life beckons at this Glenageare East Cork homestead, a few miles inland of beaches at Ladysbridge. An upgraded cottage on an acre, with one of its two out-buildings now a self-contained guest apartment, it’s a real lifestyle buy for those who like a country and near-coastal location, and enough ground for gardening; it even has a good-sized polytunnel in situ, ready for summer produce, while the grounds around it are home to fruit bushes and lawns.

The entire lot (including outbuilding/workshed) is for sale with Helen Kearney of CCM Property in Midleton, who guides it at €180,000, and who says the main dwelling has been fully re-done, around 2007 when the roof was replaced, and the front and back walls have been insulated with sheepswool.

It’s all in walk-in condition, both the main house and the guest apartment, and the gardens are picture perfect by the house and apartment, colourfully planted and set further off in the colour stakes by the jaunty and glossy louvred window shutters.

Most of the rooms in the main house have pine ceilings, and there are three bedrooms in all, none very large, and some buyers may choose to use the smaller as a study.

It has both oil-fired central heating and a wood burning stove, and floors are a mix of pitch pine and cherrywood. Ceilings in the living area are high, at about 10’, and there’s side shelving and storage for logs for the stove, while the dining room has French doors to decking and rural glen views.

Both kitchen and main bathroom are simply but crisply finished out (the house is pretty immaculate inside and out, notes CCM’s agent Ms Kearney) and the self-contained guest apartment has its own kitchen/dining, area, with bedroom and shower room. The other outbuilding is used as a workshed and store, with galvanised doors and fittings, while the main house has extra touches like teak main door and feature half doors, brass door fittings, tilt and turn double glazed windows, external decorative shutters, sensor lighting, etc.

Location is peaceful, for those who want to get away from it all without being too remote, and it is inland from Ladysbridge and Garryvoe, with Ballycotton and Shanagarry a few miles away.

The vendor has been here about 12 years and is clearly house and garden proud, and there’s options for new owners to have a work-life balance from the acre, with scope for seasonal letting, either of the main house or the guest apartment.

VERDICT: Roll on summer, and polytunnel produce to beat the band.