Gallery: House of the week: St Luke’s Cross, Cork City €365,000
Although they were downsizing, they didn’t compromise on charm and chic setting when they made the move.
They bought the Victorian semi-detached 1 Kimberley Villas, on Military Road/Alexandra Road, just above St Luke’s Cross, and it’s an elegant part of a run of terraces of 1860-1880s homes on this south-facing shelf, within a downhill stroll of Cork city centre.
During their tenure, it has been upgraded, extended to the back and overall enhanced, while still keeping much of its internal architectural detailing.
Now it’s back up for sale, ticking lots of boxes for home hunters in this once-more fashionable and regentrified inner, venerable city suburb and near a host of schools to boot.
Many of the homes in this hillside hinterland would have been built to accommodate officers in the military barracks during Queen Victoria’s reign: today, buyers include academics, professionals, artists and those who don’t want or need a car for everyday living.
Kimberley Villas, a pair of semi-ds reached up a short run of steps, is set between two longer runs of larger terraced homes, and only a few doors away the larger three-storey mid-terraced No 6 Egerton Villas shows up on the Price Register at the start of 2016, as having made €440,000.
The duo that is Kimberley Villas is smaller, but still No 1 fits in four bedrooms plus an attic level with permanent stairs access, has a good-sized main dormer room, and a top floor shower room and storage too, while a real bonus is the house’s secondary access from a quiet road to the rear.
Up above here, there’s a double garage with No 1 for precious off-street parking, and there’s a link then past a further south-facing storage shed to the tiered and enclosed back garden and on down to this property’s patio and back yard.
A quick scan at what some of the neighbours have done with their own garages will give great ‘man cave’ or sun room/glass house ideas to any buyer looking for a home with a bit of such extra appeal and potential (there’s c 450 sq ft of scope here).
Selling agent for No 1 is Michael O’Donovan of Savills and he guides the very well kept c 1,400 sq ft home at €365,000, describing the back garden with its bonus workroom/garage as a bit of an oasis.
It has a canted bay window in front and some moulded plasterwork over its camber headed windows, which now have replacement wood-grain effect double glazing.
Then, there’s a sunny outdoor seating area by the bay window, and occupants needn’t feel too conspicuous while outdoors thanks to elevation above the road, where there’s on-street parking.
The run of steps up to the house isn’t too challenging, and the vendors added a stainless steel handrail for a touch of modernity once past its original cast iron gates, railings and attractive red-brick pillars: and, the front garden’s well-landscaped, with a fruiting fig tree on one level.
Inside No 1 has two separate reception rooms at ground level, each with fireplaces, the front room’s floored in maple, and the same maple boards quirkly feature on top of the room’s window bay projections.
To the back of No 1, reached from double doors in the rear reception, is a decent-sized kitchen/dining room added on in 2008, which is north-facing and its sloping, membrane-sheathed roof has a glass lantern or pitched window section put in to get in as much light as possible.
Walls in this homely place are extensively clad in pine boards, units are topped in black granite and the gas hob has a curved, Miele extract, and a quirky one-off painted splashback depicting a lobster, behind a glass screen.
There’s yard access via a utility by a guest WC, and overhead are three bedrooms in the main section, plus a fourth compact room with cast iron fireplace in the rear annex/return by the main bathroom/shower room, whilst a steepish stairs leads then to attic level rooms with Veluxes.
City living made easy, and great back garden/garage options too.
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