House of the week: Castle Road, Blackrock, Cork €450,000

There’s a slight sense of déjà vu — or déjà viewed — when visiting Glanmire View, a period original with huge scope, long gardens, and a rear-access lofty coachhouse, on Cork’s uber-trendy Castle Road. 

Size: 168 sq m (1,800 sq ft)

Bedrooms: 4

Bathrooms: 2

BER: G

It’s set half way between the castle and Blackrock village and pier, now being transformed by public realm and landscaping upgrades by City Hall itself.

This mid-terraced home, in what’s now one of the city’s suburban hot-spots, (Munster’s rugby captain and Irish international Peter O’Mahony bought in to Castle Road a few years ago) comes for sale this Easter guiding €450,000.

Glanmire View needs a full resurrection, and those who have long harboured notions of living on this address on the road to Blackrock Castle might well recall back to 2012, when the house right next door, Analore, also came for sale, in equally ‘original’ condition.

Analore arrived in late March of that year, guiding €365,000, and the Price Register records it as having as sold before the end of the year, for €275,000.

In the five years since, Analore has been significantly invested in, and sensibly extended out to the back as can be glimpsed over the high dividing walls between it and this new-to-market offer.

Curiously, while Analore sold for under its asking price at the depth of the slump, by 2014 another, finer period home here, Mahonville, went over its €495,000 AMV to be recorded as selling for €680,000.

So it’s likely those viewing Glanmire View will keep a close eye on bidding and total budget outlay.

It could, and should, be lovely and already has some pleasant-shaped and well-sized rooms, especially to the front with its five bays or windows overlooking the River Lee, across the river towards Tivoli and the brightened up Lotamore House (see the feature on page 18 of today’s issue) and east towards Glanmire, hence the house’s Glanmire View appelation.

Selling agent Malcolm Tyrrell of Cohalan Downing reckons there’s about 1,800 sq ft here, a bit larger than the four-bay Analore was, and what it will grow to ‘out back’ once upgraded is an open question too.

Whoever buys, and their builders, will be getting very familiar with the house’s rear grounds, reached via a private shared lane parallel to Castle Road, as this is where the vehicular access is, and the front ope to Castle Road is slim.

There’s a bit of a twist too in the rear access for a number of the houses in this terrace, as their garages/coachhouse aren’t directly in line with the houses and gardens.

So, the old, lofted garage for Glanmire View is actually facing down Analore’s gravelled back drive and landscaped gardens, while Glanmire View looks to the stone walls of the even more impressive coachhouse that belongs to Riverside, its bow-fronted neighbour just to the east and which dates to 1790.

Likely to be a later build, Glanmire View is robust and has a fine, dual aspect drawing room to the right of its central hall, with a bay window looking over a section of garden jungle.

Right now, there’s a projecting annexe, with overhead bedroom four in a long, vaulted ceiling room above the kitchen and service room.

There’s an enormous old black cast-iron range too: while the annex is likely to be blown away to let the light in (the rear elevation is directly south facing) the mighty range deserves pride of place in any new wing.

Glanmire View merits a favourable description in the National Inventory of Architectural Heritage, which notes that it, along with Analore, “forms part of a pair whose large scale contrasts with its neighbours, making it an eye-catching addition in this eclectic group.

The slightly irregular fenestration and off centre door are quirky and curious features in a design which would seem to strive for classical regularity.”

The Inventory also admires the front boundary wall “with stone coping surmounted by spear-headed cast-iron railings”.

The narrow gate won’t fit a car, unless it’s a Smart Car, and planners are unlikely to allow significant changes to the old-world Castle Road boundary.

VERDICT: Glanmire View is very much part of Castle Road’s ‘fabric’: the road’s other fabric might well be Lycra, given this scenic Leeside stretch’s surge in popularity with walkers and runners, and promenaders.