House of the week: Blackrock Road, Cork €575,000

Location: Size: Sq m 185 (2,000 sq ft)

INTERNAL levels go down, as well as upwards, from the Gothic arched entrance of the Cork City home 1 Clonard. Set at the city end of the Blackrock Road, between Ashton school and the expansive grounds of the African Missions, this 100-plus-year-old period home has its accommodation over four floors, with a lower ground level home to kitchen/breakfast room with patio garden access, its two linked reception rooms are at the entry level, and the two floors beyond each have two bedrooms.

No 1 Clonard is new to market this month with agent Timothy Sullivan, who seeks offers around €575,000, so it’s very much a trading up home, with buyers keen on the location and the address. The Property Price Register shows at least eight Cork homes with a Blackrock address making over €500,000 since the start of 2013, when Blackrock and its environs sort of led the price recovery in the city’s suburbs.

One of the most expensively developed Cork family homes is just a few doors from 1 Clonard: it was a Georgian villa, bought at auction in 2006 for €2.75 million (still a city house auction record, via Marshs), was hugely upgraded and extended at a similar multi-million euro sum. Fast forward five years and a large Victorian/Edwardian semi-d next to Clonard and overlooking that multi-million euro spread sold for a receiver for €300,000. Called Allevard, that 2011 sale (the asking price for KPMG had been €390k) was of a building laid out in ten bedsits, and needing complete reversal and major spending to make back into a genteel family home. It now has had significant investment.

Meanwhile, new kid on the block, 1 Clonard already has that air of gentility, has been upgraded down the years and is a comfortable looking home, with retained features such as window shutters, Gothic architectural hints, original wood and tiled floors, such as in the hall, fireplaces, side alcoves, plasterwork such as coving and picture rails, etc.

Tim Sullivan says it’s most distinctive, and well-maintained, and expects good interest, especially given the location so close to the city centre.

Its rooms are well laid out, thematically in a way, with smart kitchen with island and breakfast room at the lower ground level, guest WC on the lower return, and the kitchen has French doors to a paved and stone-wall fringed patio back garden. The next floor has interlinked (timber double doors, on stout hinges) reception rooms, front and back, with fireplaces and window seats over covered rads, and the first floor’s two bedrooms each have en suites with showers. There’s a further bathroom on the ground floor stair return, plumbed for a bath. Two of the house’s largest rooms are bedrooms, on first and second floors.

No 1 Clonard faces south in front, with a good sized front garden, paved for car parking by the entrance, with lawn, mature shrubs and trees, and there’s a sunny patio section before the limestone steps up to the period-era house’s sheltered porch. The facade has retained its original look well in front, with corbel-like gutter supports, slate roof, sash-style windows, porch tiles, and wrought iron railings by the steps above the lower ground level set-back. There’s gas central heating, and an alarm.

VERDICT: A fine period home, super-conveniently set on the city end of the suburban stretch out to Blackrock village, and probably best suited to buyers who don’t want lots of outdoor space or garden to maintain.