House of the Week: 250-year-old property with a view of Blackrock Castle and Glanmire
It's coming up on 250 years of age, and Riverside is still absolutely lovely. Set on the Castle Road in Cork’s Blackrock, in this increasingly regentrified Leeside setting, this wide, bow-fronted home has roots dating right back to the 1790s, making it one of the oldest, and most beguiling, homes in this select scenic stretch of narrow, cliff-hugging road and shoreline, ’twixt village and the iconic Blackrock Castle.
“Riverside has it all,” says estate agent Michael O’Donovan of Savills, Cork, whose appointments diary has suddenly booked up with hopes to view, from aspiring, and clearly upwardly mobile home hunters, and he’s so right, given stellar location, period architectural appeal, parking and car access front and back, all on Castle Road grounds of about one-third of an acre.
As it has all this, But, if indeed it has it all, is he not being way too cautious on its guide price? , then, at €695,000?
It’s genuinely old, and has the patina of its venerable age, with many retained internal and external features, including servants’ bells. It’s also ridiculously pretty, thanks in the main to its double-height and deep bay window, its low-slung asymmetrical facade, the promise of secrets within, and thanks too to its super-mature gardens, admired in front, and only guessed at behind (where the best is hidden from all view, except from its inhabitants. Its antiquity is signalled by its fluted, slender limestone entrance pillars, grace indeed, carved in stone.
It must be 20 years and more since Riverside last came to the open market, offered back then by Hugh McPhillips of Marshs auctioneers, and he also conducted a contents auction of some fascinating artifacts on the premises.
He acted for the estate of a Mr Hobart, a late surgeon at the Royal Victorian Hospital who was had been related to art collector and benefactor Hugh Lane (whose life is portrayed in the recent movie Citizen Lane starring Tom Vaughan Lawlor in the title role).
In the intervening 20-plus years, Castle Road has almost become Cork’s ‘Citizens’ Lane,’ such is its popularity with strollers, skaters, perambulators, cyclists, dog-walkers, joggers, runners and cafe society in general, thanks to the popularity of the Blackrock/Mahon waterside walk, which can be make into a good exercise route if looped back into the old railway line/new pedestrian greenway, back from Rochestown to the Blackrock Road by Dundanion.
Back then, it had been in quite an unsophisticated state, and was bought by a couple, also with a Cork medical background and who’d lived close by, and always admired and even coveted Riverside’s charms.
They sold up in the area, and moved to Riverside (in this writer’s memory, paying about £110,000 at that time) also moving in their good furniture, which made itself right at home in the more elegant rooms.
But, this was pre-Celtic Tiger times, and days, and They didn’t spend huge further sums on it post-purchase, so there’s still lots of originality/untapped potential, within and without.
With an economic recovery back in full swing, it’s certain that whomsoever buys Riverside now (and, at what price remains to be seen) will do considerable investment this time around, as it needs upgrades and work.
It’s almost a how-long-is-a-piece-of-string proposition, as there’s still unrealised potential in a rear garage, a former coach-house, offset at the garden’s end and almost facing a neighbouring house, Glanmire View, which sold last year for €610,000 (asking price was €450,000) and is currently undergoing a costly upgrade and rear extension.
Sold too in Castle Road’s ‘front row’, at very varied prices were the likes of Mahonville (€682,000) and Analore, for a mere €275,000, back in 2012, while rugby legend Peter O’Mahony bought the bow-fronted Tenby Cottage back in 2012 for €640,000, and Mount Rivers and its lodge (behind and beside Riverside) shows on the Price Register at €900,000 in 2015.
Internally, Riverside has rooms varying from magical to mundane, the better to the right and including the hall, stairs and landing, and one of its four bedrooms is en suite, with a dressing area, while the rear gardens are a secret, private world, and verdant oasis... at least until the builders come.
VERDICT: A little Georgian gem which needs to be gently burnished.
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