Bespoke rural retreat is a hand crafted haven

Ballydehob, West Cork €340,000

He came, he sawed, he sawed, he sawed some more — and the all-wood, all conquering home you see here is the result of two years’ labour.

Apart from system-building, and factory prefabrication, most houses get built by manual labour. Anyone who has taken on a self-build knows the sheer hard graft involved, but few will have put in the attention to detail that Simon Hassett lumbered himself with in building his Ballydehob family home. He even cut, shaped and drilled each and every one of the thousands of cedar roof shingles, in his all-wood, wonderful home, pretty much all made of locally grown Irish timbers.

The only positives he had in his favour when starting the undertaking were the fact he has his own workshed, and wood is his passion and livelihood. Originally a boat-builder, he’s a noted carpenter and craftsman, known in particular for his curved, bespoke staircases, poetry in seeming motion in private houses and castles: he’s done the stairs in the privately-restored Baltimore Castle, and in Jeremy Irons’ Kilcoe Castle. Irons says simply “his work is spectacular.” (see www.thewoodworks.ie)

Now, at Boleagh, a couple of miles from Ballydehob in West Cork, an entire wooden house made by the same Mr Hassett and his wife Bella Hancock is for sale, along with his woodworking shed (also hand-built) which can be used for a variety of uses, or even converted to guest accommodation, according to local estate agent Martin Swanton.

Guided at €340,000, the house is about 1,800 hand-crafted square feet, with three bedrooms and easy scope for a fourth, in its quite novel broad V-shape.

Design is by British architect Tom Hancock, Bella’s father, who was involved in the design of the unusually-sited Battersea Peace Pagoda, a tall timber and concrete Buddhist temple built by the river Thames in 1985.

Work on this more domestic Ballydehob project started in the year 2000, and took two years to build out, and so was done at as considerable pace given the intricacies involved, with Simon researching timber-frame construction from US sources. He reckons it’s one of the earlier timber frame Irish houses, before the method got way more common during that decade. While he did the main build, he contracted out some jobs such as windows and doors to other specialists whose work he regarded, as “otherwise it would have taken even longer to finish.”

It’s framed in 6” by 2” timbers, with ply outside for rigidity and internal slabbing, and the exterior is sheeted in deal, now all weathered down to a soft, silvery grey.

Roofing is all in cedar shingles, Irish-grown and all hand-fashioned. Other Irish harvested timbers putting in star-turn appearances are macrocarpa (most at home in New Zealand), ash, maple, Scots pine, elm and oak.

All three bedrooms are upstairs in the dormer section, with A-shape and angled wood-sheeted ceilings off a large landing. One has a lovely south-west facing balcony on a gable, with glazed half-door access. To either side of this door are two quadrant windows, in cedar, painted in a pale shade of green like the exterior doors and other casement cedar windows.

Downstairs (pausing to admire the handiwork of the curved, steeply-climbing handrail at the centre of the curved stairs, in elm) is an elm-floored hall, tiled conservatory nearly 20’ by 10’, with an array of roof window and Veluxes amid rough, adobe-like plasterwork in the pitched ceilings. There’s a 24’ by 12’ living room with open beam ceiling and maple floor, a similar sized kitchen/dining room, with large solid fuel stove which also provides central heating, and a ground floor main bathroom.

The warm, homely kitchen has a Scots pine floor, kitchen units are in Scots pine too, with elm worktops and the stove hearth is a mosaic stone and tile mix. Like the rest of the house, ceiling beams at ground level are exposed, so you’re looking at wood all the way, including the underneath of the upstairs floorboards.

Auctioneer Martin Swanton says the house has a very low carbon footprint, thanks to all the locally-sourced woods, and the stove uses up all the off-cuts produced by the workshed’s activities. That lofted shed, clad in large lapped boards, has scope for conversion, but will need an energy upgrade if it’s to be lived in out of fine summer weather as its current roof is green galvanised iron. Its setting is quite sublime, by a stream and pond, home to all sorts of flora wildlife, from birds to frogs, and the occasionally-glanced otter.

The stream has a small waterfall, and the landscape around is gentle, undulating and pastoral: If you want a lifestyle relocating spot, away from the hustle and bustle, then this could be it, as the ground also come with apple trees and fruit bushes, a poly-tunnel, a chicken coop and hen run, and established herb and veg beds.

It’s all “a beautiful setting in a beautiful, peaceful location,” according to agent Martin Swanton, who’s based a mile and a half away in Ballydehob. Skibbereen is about 11 miles from this retreat, which has services on site, as well as solar panels, and broadband.

VERDICT: A house in which to see the woods, from the trees.