House of the week: St Margaret's in Crosshaven boasts a whopping vista

UP by the Camden Road, scanning much of Cork harbour and all of Crosshaven’s boating, is St Margaret’s, a smallish home that has a whopping vista.

Sat, 14 Jul, 2018 - 01:00

By Tommy Barker (Pictures: Ted Murphy)

UP by the Camden Road, scanning much of Cork harbour and all of Crosshaven’s boating, is St Margaret’s, a smallish home that has a whopping vista.

Boats, by the hundred, are due to promenade past St Margaret’s from tomorrow, as Volvo Cork Week kicks into gear, sheets, sails, and spinnakers billowing around the highways and backwaters of Cork harbour, and the harbour mouth.

One hundred yachts and crews, and support and spectator boats, are set to take part in the week-long biennial regatta, from tomorrow until Saturday next, operating out of the Royal Cork Yacht Club, with the town of Crosshaven en fete, and with a spillover economic boon to the hinterland. It’s estimated to be worth €2m to the local economy. No small beer.

Volvo Cork Week is when opportunistic house-owners, hoping for a property windfall, along with their selling agents on board for a commission, hang out the ‘for sale’ boards with the bunting.

It was so common a tactic back in the Celtic Tiger days that some of the sale boards were as big as some of the houses.

On Wednesday of this week, three new Crosshaven house listings alone went online, just in time for the influx of visitors, with even that number further swollen by day-trippers and beach visitors during the month-long heat wave.

Perfectly set to capitalise on the fine weather-induced desire to be beside the seaside is the diminutive (c 1.050 sq ft) St Margaret’s, and, yes, it was one of Wednesday’s new offers on the local homes market.

It’s priced at €395,000 by estate agent, Steven Browne, of Sherry FitzGerald O’Donovan, in nearby Carrigaline, for its owners, a young family, who only bought it a short while ago. They did some upgrades, and got planning permission to add a further 800 sq ft in a split-level extension, to the side/east, which would bring a completed/reworked dwelling on this choice plot to 1,800 sq ft.

The Price Register shows that St Margaret’s last transacted back in 2016, at a reported €350,000, and, apart from securing the planning for the extra 800 sq ft, the occupants upgraded the kitchen, put in a stove, and made other alterations. But, now, they’ve decided to eliminate the hassle of building an extension, and hope to buy a ready-to-go larger home.

Set out on the road toward Camden/Fort Meagher from the village, it’s in mixed company, close to extended, whopping homes, some with considerable architectural elan, as well as still traditional-sized dwellings, along Camden Road and the Point Road, more or less above Crosshaven Boatyard, up near where the starting gun (cannon) for harbour races traditionally has been fired.

Can it get any more maritime?

It’s on a site of nearly one-third-of-an-acre, and is a simple, three-bed bungalow. “All of the living accommodation faces south-westerly, ensuring maximum sunlight throughout the day. It has incredible views of Crosshaven harbour, and of picturesque surrounding countryside,” says Mr Browne.

Internally, it has a hall/reception, and an L-shaped, combined kitchen with island/dining/living room, over 30’ by 10’, with oak floor, sliding/folding doors to the patio from the dining section, and some old brass porthole windows, too, for contrast. There are three oak-floored bedrooms, a utility, and a main bathroom with bath/shower.