House of the week: Beauty, charm and joy at Ellerslie

Location: Douglas, Cork €2.75million

THE last time Ellerslie came up for sale, back in 1999, its buyers only visited two days before it was due to be auctioned. They kept a low profile, at the edge of an open viewing, and only came to the fore for the big moment on the day of auction. It was, they admit, very much a spur of the moment decision — but they haven’t regretted it a single day since.

Back then, pre-auction, we remarked here that it was one of only a dozen or so Cork houses of this sort of stature and quality, and that buying a place like Ellerslie was, in effect, a sort of pension.