House of the week: Douglas, Cork €580,000

THERE’S something special — in fact, lots special — about the great family home called Ard na Gréine, which bookends the Rosebank estate, located between the main and south Douglas roads in Cork’s suburbs.

Douglas, Cork €580,000

Sq m 214 (2,300 sq ft)

Bedrooms: 5

Bathrooms: 3

BER: E2

Best Feature: Great family home

First up, it’s a very decent sized five bedroomed detached house, with corner site and south facing aspect; it’s gardens are generous with the same bright and warm aspect - and, it’s also extremely bright inside, and has been very well built.

Dating to 1951, it was built by Dick Lane of Lane Builders, who also built the 40 or so other homes in Rosebank, most of them three-bed semis, with a few four-beds and a couple of detacheds.

Ard na Gréine was home to Dick and Angela Lane since, and was extended in the 1950s as the family began to grow, to eight children.

Not only was it a particularly busy and welcoming home, its front garden also became a de facto football pitch for the park’s other children in the 1960s and ’70s, a Field of Dreams for dozens, with a playroom attached, and fond memories all around.

It’s mellowed back now from those heady days, and the hedges got a chance to grow back and now surround the boundary with the South Douglas Road, so there’s huge privacy and screening for the house, its gardens and its front terraced and side sun-trap patio, its swathe of crazy paving, and more lawn.

Now a sprightly 65 years old house, it comes to market as an executor sale with estate agent Timothy Sullivan in lovely clean condition.

It has lots of original features, including a white twin oven Aga in the kitchen and some oak floors plus, seemingly, acres of internal space, thanks to further bone-dry flat roofed utility room, stores, and pantry, behind a sheltering side car-port.

Ard na Gréine is set sideways to the end of Rosebank, on a hill, and its two ‘good’ rooms are to the front, each facing the sun, and one’s a good 18’ by 12’ with stove now inset into a brick hearth with copper mantle clay brick fireplace, and a second, west-facing window.

Across the wide and bright hall is a TV/family room with oak floor and bay window, and the kitchen/breakfast and family dining alcove is almost 20’ by 10’.

The view from the kitchen sink is of the immaculate, sheltered side garden and terrace, with some feature trees and a shrubbed boundary in old red brick. On a sunny day, there’ll be a feel of the Med about the place.

Off beyond the kitchen is practically another house, via a back hall, and this yields a good dining room or family den, utility, guest WC, and stores 19’ by 8’ — enough for most families’ sports and hobbies and pets and bikes ‘n’ stuff.

Light drops down from knackily made, and supremely simple, curved perspex sheets in the roof.

Back in the heart of the home, the staircase and hall are lit by a very large gable window, and ranged off a three-sided landing are up to five bedrooms, three facing south, and two bathrooms.

One bedroom, with a westerly aspect, is next to an upgraded shower/wet-room and could possibly be turned into a master suite quite readily.

There’s great charm and airiness to the house, its ceilings have an extra bit of height, heating is oil-fired, and the bones are good but it needs some modernising.

(To see how these vintage homes respond to stylish upgrades, see Casey and Kingston’s nearby Ballincurrig Park’s five-bed, Villa Nova, under offer at €472,000.)

All the requisite space is here at Ard na Gréine, inside and outside thanks to a great corner, tended and colourful site, in a well-served location for schools, shops, sports and more.

There’s a public park and swimming pool by the opposite end of Rosebank, and Nemo Rangers GAA club is close along the back Douglas road, picking up the sports mantle from this one-time small, pre-FIFA Field of Dreams.

VERDICT: Ard na Gréine has done the estate some service.