This home in Ballintemple, Cork, has a spacious site with garage, car port and impressive garden
The address is No 21, Janeville, and it looks not unlike many of the neighbouring homes in this suburban Cork estate of big detached homes.
But it has its own subtle changes, a fantastic garden for families, and a great garage for car fiends.
Plus a carport.
Plus an interior that’s as spotless as it is spacious.
So, lots of plusses, and nary a negative, bar a price-tag that’s unfortunately out of the reach of mid-market house hunters, as coming-of-age No 21 comes to market.
Set off the Blackrock Road, on the city side of Ballintemple village and opposite the Lindville development, Janeville is a suburban enclave with long historical antecedents and links and naming rights.
In the 18th and 19th centuries, this area was home to the Lindsey family who had great estates (of the farming kind) in Co Tipperary, and they came to put a firm mark on Ballintemple.
One Lindsey gifted fine new houses in this now-suburbanised hinterland to his three daughters, the houses being called Lindville, Maryville and Janeville, and it’s thought that Jamesville, Ballintemple might have been a gift to a son called Jim.
Down the centuries, the villas have been built up to, by a range of 20th century builders, and even Janeville’s 20-plus homes have had several builders take them on.
The first six were built by PJ Hegarty & Co in the 1970s, the dearest new homes of their day in Cork city.
Sales were slow, and it was a while before the next lot got moving, and another builder, Michael Burke, did the final 14.
Finally, two extra-large sites at Janeville’s innermost end came for sale in the mid 1980s, and a family already living in the estate plumped to sell up and move further in, for a much bigger site now put at one-third of an acre, and jumped at the chance to tweak the layout.
Like the one other house built on a similar scale of site and around the same time, No 21 has its lengthy southern boundary wall running along the Boreenmanna Road where the floodlights of Páirc Uí Rinn can be seen and, quite cleverly, No 21 has a secure pedestrian gate onto the Boreenmanna Road for an even wider range of amenities on its doorstep.
The owners use it all the time to add to their walking routes back to the city centre.
Now it’s trade-down time, and, with children reared and moved on, 21, Janeville is for sale with Sheila O’Flynn of Sherry FitzGerald, who guides at €890,000.
It should do very well.
Ms O’Flynn’s vendors are not just house-proud, they are garden-proud, and garage-proud.
It’s all neat as a pin.
The gardens have lush lawns and, remarkably, given it’s so early in spring, the cut grass is striped like a pitch, is bouncy underfoot, and the borders front, back and sides, are filled with mature, trimmed shrubs standing like sentinels, with spring bulbs at their feet.
Paths and steps cutting through the back lawn are paved in stone, and some of the steps are old, dressed limestone salvaged from the original Silversprings House by builder Con O’Shea, who built No 21 to an adapted design by Janeville’s original architect Denis Higgins.
Day one, these were big houses built without frills or ostentation, finished in dash and brick, and with so-practical, attached car ports.
However, they are enormously practical and accommodating houses, big-boned, and they don’t ‘do’ small rooms.
Weighing in at 2,600sq ft, No 21 has a great flow of ground-floor space.
There’s a covered porch next to the carport with terracotta tiled base, and the entry hall has a generous coat closet, and main hall beyond, with open stairwell and wide landing.
Off the hall are a study/bedroom five to the right, and then three reception rooms (living room, family room and dining room) all span the south-aspected rear, with garden views.
An internal wall of glass between the dining room and hall adds to the space and light even in the house’s core.
Running off from the family room is a kitchen/breakfast room with fitted units and integrated appliances.
Further on again (at this stage you are sort of circling the house) is a well-sized utility/ laundry, the size of many homes’ kitchens.
Smart extra feature?
The utility has a side door to the spacious car port, so children, kit and caboodle can be offloaded, safely, and in all weathers too.
From a quick scan it seems Janeville neighbours use their carports for cars, bikes, log storage, pets and other practicalities.
Overhead are four decent bedrooms, master bed en suite with dressing room, and updated main bathroom.
However, head and shoulders over its neighbours, No 21 is such a spacious site that there’s a garage tucked away as well, with a secure gate/compound outside, and it’s big enough to take a couple of small cars, or a car and a boat, or a camper and there’s a small workspace attached.
If you’re a hobbyist, a DIYer, a collector of precious motors or that ilk, you’ll be in heaven.
Room to breathe
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