Cover: Cuskinny, Cork harbour €1.2 million

Sq m 284 (3,000 sq ft)

SWIM and sail and be careful.” That was the advice given to the six children of a family when they fetched up to live on the shores of Cork Harbour 44 years ago. They did what they were told, their lives punted and pivoted about the harbour and “they were always in or on the water.”

Now, while the love of sailing and the sea has been passed on even to grandchildren in this fortunate family, their home which accommodated a lively brood, on 8.5 acres of beautiful grounds, is now setting its sights on new occupants.

Ballymore Lodge, on Great Island in the heart of this great, expansive and embracing harbour, dates to the late 1800s and is one of a handful of gloriously-sited period homes and estates east of Cobh town, in woodland worlds of their own by Cuskinny.

Ballymore Lodge has great assets: it’s a period home that’s not too big to make the fullest use of, and it has been well kept down the years, with old stone outbuildings retrained, and lots of shoreline frontage.

It even has a small boathouse, tucked away under the garden’s boundary with a simple long slip along the rocky shingle shore for dinghy launching. It all faces full-south with direct ocean views from several rooms to and beyond the mouth of the harbour and Roches Point, with a panoply of sights in the middle distance, including Whitegate’s jetties, Aghada’s chimneys to the east, and Ringaskidy’s wind turbines to the west. Then, there’s boats, lot of them, of every size, from punts to cruise ships.

“Lodge” is too small a descriptor for this Ballymore home of considerable charm, billed as “period style” by estate agent Dominic Daly in Cork, who guides it at €1.2m and who feels a buyer may come as easily from the city (as its vendors did back in distant 1970) or from up country, or from overseas. It’s a lifestyle buy and a place to put down roots.

Apart from being a home for great family rearing years, it’s a wildlife haven, with foxes, badgers, red squirrel, and a whole lot more scurrying around on foot and paw, while there’s pheasants and every type of seabird on the wing, butterflies a-flutter, and fish, porpoise, occasionally dolphins (and sometime children too) in the water.

While much of the eight-plus acres are in mature woodland (much of it planted by the family in their tenure, including abundant Spanish Chestut) there’s also several lower grounds which are lawned, with double beds of lavender, abundant shrubs, fragrant walks, giant gunnera, greenhouse, and herb and veg beds.

Some enormous vegetable plots seen in an old aerial photograph of this property have been left go in more recent years, as there were dwindling numbers of mouths to feed.

Also, an old stone barn building, in poor condition, had to be taken down recently as it was a danger to wandering grandchildren: Bbetter safe than sorry (that sensible family injunction again) and the stone rescued from it has since cropped up elsewhere, in walls and ditches.

Back when the current owners moved in to Ballymore Lodge all those years ago, there was just one entrance avenue, but after a few years they sensitively opened up a second one, quite delicately between century-old trees. So, now there’s a choice of wooded access points....and it means never having to engage reverse gear in a car, just go out the opposite way to the way you came in.

Given all the acreage, the shelter, the screening and the site’s sheer length, there may be scope for a further house site, or two, or several, suggests auctioneer Mr Daly, either now or as a future option. In any case, the vendors already got two sites in the past decade for family members, just off on the Cobh side of the grounds, but they’re discretely (and sublimely) placed, a short remove away by the water’s edge.

Ballymore Lodge is along what’s called the Valley Road, beyond Cuskinny Court, woods and marsh, home to RTÉ’s annual Dawn Chorus birdsong broadcasts, near too to woods, Marlogue and its marina, near as well to picturesque East Ferry, where many houses either side of that beautiful inlet bounding Great Island are limited to morning, or evening, sun but not both, because of aspect and shouldering hills.

There are no such shortcomings at Ballymore, which basks in all day sun and sea views and even in bad weather you can generally see clearances coming (or going) as there’s just so much sky to behold. Like several other of the great houses along this stretch, previous occupants here at Ballymore Lodge were sea-farers or shipping merchants, and so had a vested interest in the vagaries of the weather.

The family now selling had smaller weather windows to watch out for, just enough time for sail, a swim or to go fishing, and picnics by forts or on places like White Strand. Many a mackerel, or shoaled whitebait, ended up in pan at Ballymore Lodge after minding its own business in the harbour, swimming merrily along one minute, and someone’s dinner the next.

There’s huge and happy memories associated with Ballymore Lodge, and a lot of regret at its sale but time moves on, family moves on, and it’s not being used and enjoyed as much as its should be, its owner practically reckons. It’s in good enough shape for any buyers to move into straight away and to get a feel for before making major changes but it’s a near-certainty that it will get an overhaul and upgrade in any case, just on basis of age and necessity.

It has already had its front windows replaced in the past few years in any case, with a careful, considered design by a Tralee craftsman, very much in keeping with the house’s period origins, in painted hardwood, with new sash ropes, brass clasps; several at ground level have arched tops as well, while upstairs they’re done in a traditional four pane over four pattern. (Just two windows in the entire house are in pvc, purists might like to note.)

Main entry is via a part-glazed front porch, old world but effective for shelter and as an ante chamber, and it’s draped with rambling roses and creeper, and the house’s main western gable is slate-hung for shelter from prevailing westerlies, and similarly draped in greenery, and summer blazes of blossom. Off to the left of the central hall is a drawing room with double aspect, and white marble fireplace, and to the right is a large reception/dining room, with solid fuel stove and a hefty beamed ceiling with, unusually, the ends of those beams projecting through under ceiling height into the hall.

The main, sunniest space of all is to the eastern end, and it’s a combined kitchen/breakfast room, opening into a sun room with large, picture windows and lots of wood panelling for cosiness.

It’s unlikely you’d ever tire of the vista from here, and breaking into this section from what had been a compartmentalised kitchen behind was a deal-breaker on first moving in, recalls the woman of the house.

There’s a back hall off the kitchen (which right now is graced with just-harvested bundles of lavender tied to ceiling beams), leading back to the central hall and to a study, while practical space out of sight at the back is given over to a guest WC/shower room by the back door (for hosing off salt water after a day in the harbour), a utility and a pantry.

A simple, elegant straight run of stairs leads to an east-west landing and, disconcertingly, to a facing wall with over-sized mirror creating a sense of double-depth. There are five upstairs bedrooms, most with views of the water, and the master bedroom’s en suite has some of the best views out of a slender window too, directly above the porch.

All the bedrooms are a fine size, and one, to the east is the only section of the house where there are pvc windows replacements, and this room looks out and down on a sheltered courtyard, with old well-kept stone outbuildings.

Back outside, the grounds rise up behind the house into deep greenery, with shrubs and flower-fringed paths, along with several seating bowers shades spots, while a path and steps leads directly down from the front drive, with lawns on either side, to steps down to the waters edge.

There’s every type of hardwood tree seemingly at home in the grounds, unaffected by proximity to the sea, and more than enough windfalls too for home and stove heating in the winter months.

VERDICT: There’s only a small handful of Cork houses in as special a setting, and very few come with so much acreage, shoreline frontage and a direct, southerly aspect.

It’s a bit of a prize.