From cottage rubble on the Well Road to two high-end new builds, one priced at €1.35m

Two tall homes fitted onto compact cottage site off Cork's Douglas Road

Brickwork with champagne-coloured grout as example of attention to finish/detail. Agent Elizabeth Hegarty guides Inish at €1.35m.

Well Road, Douglas Cork
€1.35m million
Size	261 sq m (2,810 sq ft)
Bedrooms	5
Bathrooms	4
BER	A2

RUBBERNECKING motorists curious to know the story behind two imposing new homes that have emerged from the rubble of a cottage on the Well Road can read the details here.

CGI of finished product

They are Inish and Cuan, built by niche developer Bobby Sheehan, who bought the site in March 2022 from a receiver, with planning permission for both homes already in situ, thanks to Reddy Architecture, who came up with the Edwardian-style design and had taken care of the planning application.

By May, work was underway at the Well Road site. “We don’t hang about,” Bobby says.

Work is well advanced on Inish

Having worked in London for 14 years, mainly in commercial property (he has done some niche residential, including a new home on Blackrock’s Castle Road), he developed an appreciation for the English city’s tall, redbrick, period-style homes and was keen to stay true to form when building Inish and Cuan, of which just Inish is on the market.

“We spent a lot of time picking the correct brick (bought from Dublin-based Outhaus, sourced in the Netherlands) and building the mouldings into the stonework. We even used champagne-coloured grout instead of cement,” Bobby says.

Attention to detail is obvious, from the roof-top decorative finial, to the 11 ft high ground-floor ceilings, to the double-height skirting board that sits well in high-ceiling, period homes.

CGI of interior

Then there are the triple-glazed Aluclad windows that attenuate traffic noise, the supersize skylight on the top floor that lets natural light flood down through the stairwell and the specially made, glazed fire door between hallway and open-plan kitchen/dining/living space.

“You can’t normally get a fire door fitted with glass, but we wanted to let light through from the hallway, so we sent it off to a joiner and then we had to have it certified as a fire door,” Bobby says.

Work done to date at Inish, rear view

You could say he left no stone unturned in the development because literally, many stones had to be turned to get it over the line. This included buying a strip of land from the management company at adjacent Douglas Wells apartments to facilitate moving a wall in order to install a footpath and create a better sight line on the road. Bobby says the homeowner at Inish will be able to “get a proper look up and down the road” before pulling out in a car, when the work is completed. They’ll also have a footpath, where there previously wasn’t one.

Everything about five-bedroom, detached Inish shouts “high-end”, from the underfloor heating at ground level, to the Mitsubishi Ecodan heat pump and Beam heat recovery system, to the increased electric loading to 16KVA “which essentially future-proofs the house for load requirements” Bobby says.

Additionally, Inish, which has an excellent A2 energy rating (with provision for car charger and solar panels installation), is covered by a 10-year structural guarantee with Homebond, which is rare enough for one-off (or two-off) homes.

Inish is one of two being finished out this summer at the Douglas end of the Well Road, and will be offered with a 'builder's finish' at €1.35m

Internally, the buyer will have a blank canvas to play with, as Bobby feels choosing kitchens/flooring/tiling/wardrobes is very much a personal choice. To assist with this, Inish comes with a generous €50,000 PC sum and lots of practical features such as recesses for a floor-to-ceiling bookcase in the living room, a separate recess for a TV, a hidden pantry and recess off the open-plan kitchen/dining/living area ,where there’s a large picture window and sliding door to a rear patio and soon-to-be-laid artificial lawn (low maintenance).

All of the rooms are generous and all four bathrooms are fitted with high-spec (Image/Dilusso) sanitary ware. The main bedroom on the first floor has a walk-in wardrobe and en suite; a second first-floor bedroom also has a walk-in wardrobe. Each of the top two floors has a separate bathroom. With five bedrooms, home office possibilities are strong.

Elizabeth Hegarty of Savills is selling Inish and the guide price is €1.35m.

Randall House on the Well Road,next to Greenbanks,  has gone 'sale agreed' for well over its €1.25m AMV in recent weeks

She says it’s “rare to get a new build of such style and quality in such a great location”, just a few minutes’ walk from Douglas village, close to several schools and much retail.

She’s expecting interest from ex-pats returning home, who will appreciate living so near to such an amenity-rich area (eg tennis club immediately to the rear), close to Cork City and Cork Airport.

“It’s an ideal family home, with schools on the doorstep and so much more. Usually when people buy in the area, they are looking at retrofits and upgrades.

“Here at Inish, it’s all done, an A-rated, economical-to-run home, that, even though it’s new, fits in with the older neighbourhood.”

VERDICT: Top-notch finish at Inish. Upmarket family home in bulletproof location.