It's showtime as €485k Courtmacsherry home with private cinema gets property market premiere

200-year old coastal building on the Wild Atlantic Way has been a boat building shed, a dance hall, a garage and cinema. Oh, and is a large comfortable home now. Break out the popcorn

Sat, 22 Apr, 2023 - 12:00

Property Editor Tommy Barker reports Pictures Niamh Whitty

Courtmacsherry, West Cork
€485,000
Size	325 sq m (3,500 sq ft)
Bedrooms	4
Bathrooms	3
BER	-

SHOWING all this week: Harbour House, a Courtmacsherry water-fronting home of substance and quite some history, and one coincidentally reprising its one-time mid-1900s role as a cinema.

The substantial main street building has been a home (on and off); a boat-building shed operated by the local Travers family; a dancehall known as Ruddock’s Hall; decried as a den of iniquity by local clergy in the 1930s (with one notable sermon for the regatta dances in August 1936, widely reported); and later it was the Room at the Top, which also held talent shows.

It also served as a temporary cinema too after electricity arrived in the late 1930s until the 1960s with a sheet draped over the rafters; it was a garage called “Jim Burke’s”, a car and motorcycle dealership; a shop and more.

Various historical loops followed: Later owners again built boats here, only at ground floor, not upstairs as the Travers had done in the late 1800s and early 1900s, winching them out via a gable opening.

Most recently, and by some coincidence, its buyers in 2019 who are cinema lovers of the “golden era”, put in their own private home cinema for family and friends, which is far more elaborate than the one which operated here in a flicker of black-and-whites classics over half a century ago.

Harbour House was bought only as recently at 2019 by Peter and Jane Jennings, a couple from the UK, now into their early to mid-70s, and sort of serial renovators who have eight renovations/conversion projects to their credit, in places like Kent and outside London.

Several of their projects have had home cinemas, they say, adding that they don’t have a television, preferring the allure of the big screen (theirs is 12-foot wide) and the enjoyment of films from the 1930s to the 1960s and world cinema, with musicals screened most Sundays.

Peter and Jane have been visitors to Ireland, and after spells with friends in Ballydehob and attendances at the Fastnet Film Festival in Schull (attended also by new “locals” such as Paul Mescal and Saoirse Ronan who’ve each bought homes in the Schull/Ballydehob hinterland) and which they love for its casual engagement, they took a whim to fly to view this property, Harbour House, and one other in Clonakilty, four years ago.

“The Clonakilty one was big, but a bit boring,” says Peter, a retired social worker. He and Jane, who worked in education in London, both equally fell for the charms and scope of Courtmacsherry, and appreciated the fact it was only an hour from Cork City and the airport for affordable Ryanair flights over and back to family in England.

They bought Harbour House from Clonakilty agent Martin Kelleher who had it for sale with a guide of €297,000, getting it for €280,000 according to the Price Register. At that time, it was a private house upstairs with a mix of service rooms below, and no connecting internal stairs.

Clearly not afraid of work, they linked both levels, updated the decor and kitchen, refurbished and lifted it to new levels of brightness — in contrast to the black-out darkness of the cinema below especially, with its neon-look “Bijou Kinema” sign crafted by Peter, the velvet curtains and comfortable “stressless” seats used for movie nights.

Much of the work was done during covid lockdowns, so sourcing materials was a challenge and the cost of timber went up 50% between starting one end of the building and finishing the other. When trying to source doors, all they could get at one stage were fire-rated ones, so they also had to stump up for them.

They have a good eye — not just for cinema — and having done so many houses before, they seem to know what works in creating a distinctive home. An unloved 1960s James Bond-style house in Epping Forest overlooking the lights of London was a favourite, and had languished years on an agent’s books before they took it in hand. They also have a good ear for serious jazz.

Thus, the walls of several rooms have art and posters reflecting their twin art passions: Janet paints and Peter prints posters for special movie nights and screenings, with their home cinema having its own back-up kitchenette... a bit more up-market than a popcorn maker.

The cinema room has its own foyer where they can post lit posters of upcoming shows and the couple say they can download and screen visitors’ favourite movies for special occasions.

A buyer of Harbour House can choose to maintain this renewed cinematic tradition (“back by popular demand”) or repurpose the room and not opt to buy the house including the costly projection gear.

Laughing, Peter recalls one of the previous homes they did up and sold with the cinema intact for its next occupant, when he made up a poster advising “Cinema under new management!”

On constant show, meanwhile, Harbour House’s feature main living room — sort of a first-floor cocoon — has a wall now entirely lined with bookshelves, many of the titles being either cinema, art, or music related, while the view from the large picture windows is over the water, and the permanent mooring spot for the RNLI Trent Class lifeboat. (The RNLI lifeboat history in Courtmac is coming up to a 200th anniversary, having been the first in Ireland, since 1825.)

Today’s Harbour House is sizeable, at some 3,500 sq ft over its two levels. Because of its changes, at first glance, it might not look like it has a history back to the 1800s, perhaps due to the wide, rectangular window sizes and tiled roof, but its considerable history is acknowledged by a plaque on the steps/front wall recalling its many, varied, and colourful previous uses.

Selling agent Martin Kelleher — who had to tear up his sales brochure from four year backs and start again for its new iteration, such were the changes — guides the mid-village four-bed, three-bath home (with scope left still for repurposing some of the ground-floor rooms for next owners) at €485,000 and notes its views and history in the picturesque seaside village’s life.

“It’s flawlessly presented and immersed in light throughout. It has been completely reconfigured, extended and refurbished by the current owners to an exceptional standard in recent years. It’s a jewel in the crown of the beautiful lifeboat village,” he says.

Job done, over a building of some scale, Peter and Jane Jennings are heading back to family in the UK and Peter admits that taking on a project in his mid-70s, with some arthritis, can be a bit more of an ask than even five years ago. However, he praises the health system and supports they’ve found here in Ireland having been initially warned of the hazards of leaving the UK’s NHS to come to Cork.

“We need to downsize and also to move to the UK to be nearer family. We have always tended to buy houses that turn out to be building projects, but are hoping the next time to find a house where we can just move in and put our feet up,” says Peter, admitting “we do have a tendency to see interesting buildings and think, ‘Now what could we do with that?’”

VERDICT: Cinema Paradiso , West Cork style.