€650,000 Aherla five-bed is not just a lad pad

No expense has been spared on this family home, which has everything from a snooker room to an add-on apartment

Mon, 03 Aug, 2020 - 06:50

Catherine Shanahan

PINEWOOD is the kind of house the man in your life could get highly excited about.

Apart from the acres of space inside and out, it’s got tonnes of lad-stuff: a snooker room, gym (in the house and out in that massive double garage), workshed, possibly some of the biggest TV screens you’ve ever seen and an ensuite off the master bedroom large enough for the entire family to blitz through the morning routine.

And while sometimes what is pitched as a walk-in wardrobe turns out to be little more than a glorified closet, Pinewood’s is the real deal.

The home is only 15 minutes from Cork City.

Everything about this house is amplified, from the long tree-lined driveway to the imposing hallway with its walnut and glass staircase, to the bespoke island-cum-breakfast bar, designed by Contemporary Kitchens in Pouladuff, to the legion of bathrooms that outnumber the bedrooms, to the air-to-water heating system, to the add-on apartment with its own separate access, bringing the overall size to almost 3,800sq ft, more than double the size of the original property on this site.

All things considered, it’s probably fair to say plenty of women will get highly excited about Pinewood too, for possibly all the same reasons as a male (Cue: Reanne Evans, World Women’s Snooker Champion), but especially because of that high-spec kitchen and walk-in-wardrobe and master bedroom with French doors out onto a balcony to capitalise on views right out over the Bride Valley.

The imposing hallway has a walnut and glass staircase.

Indulgences aside, Pinewood makes a fine family home on several practical levels. On 1.4 acres and with electric gates at the end of the driveway, there’s fantastic scope for kids to play. It’s also in a great location. While appearing to be in the heart of the countryside, it’s pretty much “15 to 20 minutes from everywhere”, as selling agent John O’Mahony of OM2 points out.

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“Everywhere” translates into 10 minutes by car to Ballincollig, 15 minutes to Cork City, much the same to Bandon, and 12 minutes to the Bishopstown roundabout.

It’s also just minutes from Aherla Village which Mr O’Mahony says has mushroomed from the quiet village of his childhood “where nothing happened” to a thriving village now, with plenty of housing schemes and a younger population.

It has a good Centra store, he says, with a post office facility, two pubs (one serving pizza and the other fast-food, which keeps them open during Covid), and of course Kilbonane National School, with roughly 100 pupils, five teachers “and plenty of space in view of the Covid restrictions”, Mr O’Mahony says.

The school was extended about a decade ago, and extra classrooms added.

For those travelling on to secondary school, school bus services transport pupils from Aherla to Coachford and Ballincollig.

Back at €650,000 Pinewood, for parents working from home, the scope for office space is, well, endless. There’s already an office in the garage, as Mr O’Mahony points out. There’s also a stone outhouse and a detached shed that could be converted.

A tree-lined driveway leads to the house.

For those preparing for a return to work and worrying about childcare, there’s that apartment, with a kitchen/dining/living area and sleeping quarters, ready-made for an au pair. Or a granny flat, for more extended households.

With so much going on, the house is attracting considerable attention; there have been eight viewings in the past week.

“It’s mainly families trading up,” Mr O’Mahony says, “but amazingly enough, we’ve also had a few first-time buyers.

“There are households in Ballincollig living in three or four-bed semi-Ds who would be more than doubling the size of their homes at Pinewood. And they’d be getting a great site.”

VERDICT: No expense spared on this family home