There’s no place like Holmacre

Wake up and smell the roses at this Victorian home just a mile from Waterford City centre, writes Tommy Barker.

THE scent from the lawn’s standard roses hangs heavy on the air, enveloping the veranda and creeping into the good rooms at Holmacre — one of Waterford City’s finest period houses. Dating to the later stages of Victorian architecture, as Edwardian changes were first rung, this city home is set to change hands after almost 50 years in the same family’s ownership.

“Waterford houses as good as this only come along every ten years or so, they generally get passed from generation to generation,” says estate agent Des Purcell as he commences viewings — which are time-consuming given the space inside and out, the quirks, and assessing the changes a new family might bring to it for the next decades of ownership.