House of the Week: Lahern, Dunderrow - €450,000

Lahern, Dunderrow, Kinsale Co Cork - €450,000

Size: 190 sq m (2,030 sq ft)

Bedrooms: 4

Bathrooms: 2

BER: E1

Tommy Barker

In most cases, a house with as unusual and distinctive a layout as this home at Lahern, Dunderrow in Kinsale, would command immediate attention.

However, pit it up against what’s outside, on this silkily sinuous series of bends in the river between Innishannon and Kinsale, and it all simply pales in comparative oblivion.

It’s all about the view, at least first and foremost, and

You’d never tire of the view, say its owners, who’ve been here since the mid to late 1980s. That’s not just a partisan/vendors’ opinion.

The view from their front gate is a picture postcard and has been admired and photographed by many

hundreds, if not thousands, of passers-by on this elevated roadway, near both Shippool woods, and bustling Dunderrow, which is a now an affluent Kinsale community outlier.

This house’s ditch boundary, with that majestic sweep of River Bandon views, is wherethe acclaimed Irish writer Alice Taylor, who lives nearby in Innishannon, chose to pose for a hardback issue of her famous first book, the now-30 year old To School Through the Fields, one of this country’s largest-ever selling titles.

However, engaging and all as the vista is, it’s hardly the same fields she meandered through on her way to school, as she was born and raised well inland, in Newmarket.

The time of day the Irish Examiner visited, a small gaggle of tourists stopped and alighted from a tour bus at the same time, busy taking photos from inside this property’s electric access gate: the obliging owners leave it open most of the time to allow the taking of such golden photographic moments. It’s a well-known stopping-off spot for tour bus drivers between West Cork and Kinsale, they say.

Any other endorsements? Well, Couples celebrating their weddings in the nearby Innishannon House Hotel also pop by for carefully crafted images and that’s no scant boast, given how scenically pretty the hotel’s own river bank grounds are.

Yep, this is a house that knows it’s no good competing with a view like this, and so it lines all of its best rooms to maximise light and views... and that’s what’s going to sell it.

Auctioneer Darragh Taaffe of Keane Mahony Smith knows the house very well, and recalls selling it day one, in the mid 1980s for its then builder, Sean Fitzgerald. Now, after the longest interim ownership, several decades, he has it back on offer, and guides at what seems a very approachable asking price, of €450,000.

That’s for a split-level/upside down four-bed home of just a shade over 2,000 sq ft, on a three-quarter acre sloping site overlooking a section of valley, tidal river twists and turns, valley, woods, and rolling fields, known locally as The Brake.

The surrounds are farmland with grazing cattle, corn, leppin’ rabbits and, occasionally, passing boats and rowing crews, out of the local boatyard and rowing club, upriver around the bend at Kilmacsimon, three or four miles up the Bandon from Kinsale harbour.

Auctioneer Darragh Taaffe describes the setting and views as awesome, describing this private, Lanern Dunderrow townland bolthole as unique, with a foot in both West Cork and Kinsale camps. He says the layout over two levels creatively responds to the site, with an added bonus of a large, deep wraparound deck which replaced an earlier, smaller balcony.

That raised first floor-deck provides sit-out shelter underneath for the ground floor’s two bedrooms and central hall, and allows the lower level to be used almost independently of what’s overhead, so it’s handy for guests, visitors and extended family. Other accommodation above includes a sitting room with stone and slate fireplace plus ceiling beams, living room with stove and patio doors, playroom, dining room with patio door for external access, study, bathroom, and two bedrooms.

Overall condition of the c 30-year-old house which is set into a sloping site appears good, it has its own services on site (water, waste tank etc), part of the exterior has wrap-around insulation and, despite a poorish E1 BER, it’s a warm house to live in, say the owners.

And, for those who want all this and more, there’s a lapsed grant of planning permission (originally granted in 2003) for a further storey to go on top of the current flat roof. Given how the boundaries to the road have matured all the more since then, any new owners may seek to re-engage with planners for something even more upwardly mobile, especially given the tight overall planning in the area for new builds, and its €450,000 AMV.

VERDICT: Distracting views to drive you around the bend.