Hitting the right balance at Ashgrove House

Ashgrove House has a great mix of indoor and outdoor space, says Tommy Barker.

SOMETIMES, houses just sit wrongly on their sites: they can be small homes, on big grounds, or vice versa, hulking builds on postage stamp footprints, and it’s a case of take them as they are.

Then, you come across homes that have a balance of indoors accommodation and outdoor space, and they feel, well, just’ right’.

So it is with Ashgrove House, in a low-density section of Cork’s Rochestown, in fact just a few doors away from the highly regarded Rochestown Collge boys seconday school.

Ashgrove House is a ‘proper-sized home’ for its 1.1 acre very mature sloping grounds, and it works with the site’s topography too, having its 3,000 sq ft of living and sleeping space over three levels.

Now being sold as trading-down move by its owner, it’s got up to six bedrooms, one with en suite, and a great mix of living areas to go with it, some with high volume, high ceilinged spaces, and with a split-level arrangement in the kitchen/dining section.

Estate agent Ann O’Mahony of Sherry FitzGerald guides the expansive Ashgrove House at €650,000, and it appears to have grown and colonised the mid-section of its grounds over the decades, with distinct front and rear entrances, and lots of outdoors sitting out sections too.

Rooms include a large kitchen/breakfast room with beamed ceilings at the kitchen end, a raised dining room with French doors to a terracotta-tile paved patio/terrace, with garden views.

Next is a family room, with access to a balcony, there’s a split-level hall, sitting room with lofty, parana pine-sheeted ceilings and open fireplace, and study.

The master suite, to the front of the west-facing house, is bright, with built-ins and its private en suite bathroom has a Jacuzzi bath. Externally, Ashgrove has a detached double garage, and very mature sheltered gardens with decking and barbecue.

VERDICT: individual, and comfortable in its considerable skin.

Rochestown, Cork

€650,000

Size: 284 sq m (3,000 sq ft)

Bedrooms: 6

Bathrooms: 3

BER: Pending