Half a million euros only a warm-up act for Ovens Cork home

Period property needs serious tender loving care

Mon, 24 Aug, 2020 - 00:05

Tommy Barker

THE €505,000 asking price attached to Springmount House, its land, and outbuildings should bring inquiries flying to its selling agent – but, realistically, intending buyers might want as much again in the bank (or available from a bank) if they want to make a proper fist of it.

Set at Srelane, Ovens, just a field or two off and above the N22 at Ovens, Springmount House is a detached Georgian home, said to date to the late 1700s. It comes to market on a generous 15 acres of good, south-facing land in tillage countryside (the maps aren’t yet definitive), along with derelict coachhouses and courtyard stone buildings, mostly roofless. Plus, there’s a gate lodge.

Springmount House is in need of extensive renovation inside and out.

The bad news is there’s lots and lots to do.

The incentive to get stuck in? Well, that’s easy.

It could all be lovely, and the chance to get a period property on good, warm, south-facing land so close to Cork and Ballincollig, just past the whizzing bypass road which now scythes through Cork’s southern region, doesn’t come along very often.

A 15-minute drive could have Springmount’s next occupants as far east as Jack Lynch Tunnel, or close to Macroom and its imminent bypass on the western flanks.

That’s not auctioneering hyperbole, just a fact.

But cold, factual reality will be needed to assess a rescue plan for Springmount, which auctioneer Mark Kelly, who’s based in Bandon, says “is in need of complete renovation throughout both internally and externally”.

Internally, there’s lots of originality across its two floors and 2,650sq ft, and it’s not so large as to be overwhelming, or a real budget buster.

On a different level of scale and challenge are the old stone outbuildings, some of them lofted, some with arch entrances for carriages or farm machinery, much of it ivy clad and slowly fading from view.

Ivies taking hold at Springmount House's old outbuildings

Agent Mark Kelly has had an early surge of inquiries for this Ovens/Farren/N22 18th century home, noting too its proximity to 21st-century employers in EMC/Dell and in Ballincollig’s new office campus and business core.

He suggests Springmount and its old buildings may have some commercial possibilities too, subject to planning permission grants. If proposed and done in a suitable manner, approval could be expected as a way to fund their resuscitation?

Buyers keen on the house and buildings might get income from leasing, or working, the land, and others may want to keep horses and there’s a real appeal in this sale in being able to ‘turn back the clock’ a bit and bring it back to residential glory.

The entire property runs to about 15 acres.

That castle is undergoing a massive and multimillion-euro privately funded renovation by a Carbery descendant – and the scale of the works in Castlefreke puts Springmount House’s as-yet uncalculated renovation budget into the, eh, ha’penny place.

VERDICT: Will be fascinating to revisit in five years’ time to see what’s done here ….please?