Cover story: Dream home with five star standard inside

A Victorian property high above Cork harbour pushed out the boat when it was renovated.

Glenbrook, Cork Harbour

Price: €475,000

Size: Sq m 255 (2,750 sq ft)

Bedrooms: 4

Bathrooms: 2/5

BER rating: C2

Best feature: Five star standard

THERE’S a certain London, Westminster, image conjured up by the address No 2 Belgrave Place — and, the fact this Cork harbour terrace of very fine Victorian homes has all of its four houses recently painted in variations of warm, creamy hues, only adds to the mental impression of affluent Belgravia.

A new, youthful energy has been breathed in the past decade into this niche row of three-storey private homes overlooking the Lee, high on a hill above Glenbrook, with engrossing water and shipping views from all of its main rooms and lofty garden summit and hot-tub.

Even getting the hot tub to this exceptional property’s highest outdoor point was an uphill struggle for strong-armed builders and landscapers, but it’s sort of indicative of the ‘no effort (or expense) spared’ drive by its owners when they renovated in 2006/2007.

They first lived in the house for a year after purchase to get a feel for how they wanted to use it and alter it, then moved out, and the builders and a raft of tradesmen moved in. It took a year and an unstinting budget — total investment including purchase, stamp and more, brought the spend to about €1m, it’s understood, and every detail seem to have been thought of.

Try this for size.......there’s a large double shower in the sumptuous main bathroom by an inviting soaking bath, and here in this marble-tiled cubicle the main on/off tap for the shower is off-set a couple of feet from the shower’s jets. Why? So you can turn on the shower and let it warm up without getting the first of cold water splashes on your bare arm, of course. The only thing more indulgent would be having the valet run the bath or shower for one’s ablutions.

“We went for a five-star standard right throughout,” say the owners of this their first renovation project, which coincided with a year-long course in interior design in a Cork city college.

They got the work all done here at Glenbrook’s Belgrave Terrace, just before children started to arrive. Now, with three young ’uns, and moves afoot to acquire a very special detached period home also in the same harbour vicinity, they’ve the energy to go again on another refurb. “But, this one will be done more slowly, it’s going to be a family home for life,” they hope.

They’ve given the sale of No 2 to Malcolm Tyrrell of Cohalan, who guides at a practical €475,000, and who says he won’t be surprised if it get bids above that once viewing starts: “I’ve only got to open the door, the house can talk for itself,” he remarks.

It’s a sort of dream in shades of cream, easy on the eye, rich and effortlessly accommodating across three and four levels and half levels, with nearly 2,800 sq ft of fully-worked space and interiors. It’s almost easier to say what wasn’t done than what was — but, here goes: brand new rear garden room wing and kitchen, linking into steeply stepped grounds on several levels. Double glazing in timber frames and window shutters. New roof and pretty attic playroom with retained beams, and lofty river views to the east, tiered garden views to the west. All new plumbing and wiring, including alarms, smoke detectors and intercoms, dimmable lighting and brushed steel sockets and switches. Two Sky boxes. Solar panels. Mains gas central heating, and zoned heating, pressurised water system and garden hot-tub, quality wool carpets all Scotch-guarded, landscaped gardens front and back, top to toe and subtle lighting LED, solid wood painted kitchen by Coolmore (with granite tops and insinkerator), and it has all been repainted in the past year, with cream paints rising to the top. Phew.

No 2’s also a home, but clearly one belonging to the extremely house proud, whose attention to detail starts at the shared cul de sac drive with parking. Walls here in the communal parking space have been cleaned up and painted, setting an immediate neighbourly tone, and in the past several years the three other houses also got paint face-lifts making for a very cohesive, homogenous look.

All four, imposingly tall houses have cast iron balconies running the full width at first floor level, and owners have variously used their first floor formal front rooms as living rooms and/or bedrooms.

In this case, it’s No 2’s main bedroom, replete with functioning white marble fireplace, flanked on either side by covered radiators, and there are three full-height sets of French doors facing east for morning sun. Directly overhead is a second large bedroom, with two windows and en suite to the side with a third window.

There are four bedrooms in all, in the main block of the house on floors one and two, but there’s other accommodation options as well, from the super-bright attic level (but the stairs is a tight climb) to a great newly-added garden room, off the stairs return. The couple decided to remove and reorder a jumble of space behind the main dwelling, in the process getting a high, vaulted ceiling family den/garden room, opening directly to a sandstone terrace, and underneath a luxury new kitchen/dining/breakfast room, with light now captured from the south from two roof Veluxes.

There’s not an inch of this 1847-built home that hasn’t been brought bang up to 21st century living and comfort standards, and the house’s middle is home to a guest WC, with hotel penthouse-style main bathroom is, practically, alongside.

This bathroom has the afore-mentioned double shower, double-ended oval bath by a window with discrete plantation shutters, it has heating under its marble floor tiles, towel heating rads, a compact TV set into an end wall to watch while in the bath, and behind this wall is a highly practical laundry/utility and drying room.

Bathroom fittings are Hans Grohe and sanitary ware is Villeroy and Boch.

At entry level, elegant No 2 Belgrave Terrrace has interlinked reception rooms front and back, each sourced from Grattan Fireplaces, and the dividing double doors retract into the party walls: as in most of the rest of this house’s ‘good rooms’, curtains are in silk, sourced via designer Carmel Downey, with tie-backs, thick steel poles and stout end finials, and curtain hoops the size of pirates’ ear-rings.

The abundant radiator covers and many bedroom built-ins are by Glenline, and in the kitchen there’s a hard-working Brittania range cooker with gas rings, and very well-finished bespoke units in solid timber, hand-painted, done by House of Coolmore in Carrigaline.

Builder overseeing all the work was the well-regarded John Corcoran, who’s now retired, and the couple sing his praises, admitting they didn’t have an architect or engineer overseeing the work as they’d worked out pretty comprehensively what they wanted and how to get it by themselves.

Their only regret is that he won’t be on hand to take on their next, even bigger, project, but hope to use many of the other trades who delivered to a clearly high standard here, and they praise electrician Eamon Lyons, and plumber John Noonan.

Landscaping was done by Ron Roper, who created a back garden on four levels, yet one that’s not onerous to mind, and its very top tier is home to a viewing point high above the river and rescued terrace, complete with storage shed and hot-tub.

This high-up section extends wider than the house/site’s original footprint as one of the earlier owners, a woman living next door to her own daughter, sold her more garden for a single shilling.

On a wider historical note, the owners say the terrace dates to 1847, with locals saying they were built for engineers building or working at one or two of Passage West’s docks. The Royal Victoria Dock Yard opened in 1832, acquiring the Royal title after Victoria’s Cork harbour tour in 1849.

It’s unusual in that almost all of the houses have had renovations done in stages and several ownerships in the past decade, making for a very unified quality and architectural integrity; a few took the brave and correct step to remove inappropriate aluminium or plastic windows and to reinstate them with timber and double glazing.

A distinctive feature is the balcony running across all four complementary houses, and the owners of No 2 note the decking timber on it came from the same timbers that built the replica Jeanie Johnson: the original had brought emigrants to the US in the 1800s, back when this terrace was built.

Coming to market once more in a good-as-new state itself, and described as a ‘live antique, stylishly remodelled,’ No 2 Belgrave’s a walk-in job for any new owner/occupants, with agent Malcolm Tyrrell expecting very considerable (and slightly awed) viewings.

VERDICT: Thanks to the market’s crash post-2007, the owners’ cash loss will be the buyers’ gain, yet the vendors will make it back up, saving similarly on their next period home purchase.