Hankering for the high life? Hillside Cork home has a pool, putting green, and a zip-wire...a snip at €1.75m?
Built and rebuilt, and effectively new since 2009, Kilnagleary's Ngong near Carrigaline has over 7,300 sq ft, with swimming pool. It's priced at €1.75m by Sherry FitzGerald. All pictures Matteo Tuniz
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Carrigaline, South Cork |
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€1.75 million |
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Size |
680 sq m (7,319 sq ft) |
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Bedrooms |
5 |
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Bathrooms |
5 |
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BER |
Pending |
THERE’S hardly any reference point to indicate that the unusually-named Ngong has building roots, right back through its three owners, to the 1970s.
In fact, it’s only when seen from the air, or via a drone image, that you might get a clue of this hill-set home’s evolution and revolution.
Largely (ie, massively!) rebuilt by its family owners back in 2008, and utterly transformed to take advantage of the estuary views, and larger, longer vistas especially to the west for spectacular sunsets, this was never a small or mean home….it just responded very well to updating.
It dates to the 1970s, and its first owner, businessman Pat O’Donovan, added a swimming pool to the back, so it kind of started off as a high-end pad in any case ‘for its day.’
Its second owner James Barber, who was also in business and who at one time owned Ballea Castle near Carriglaine, added to it: it’s been through as many as five changes or alterations/extensions, it’s reckoned, with most of the evidence of them now gone!
It then sold to its current owners in the mid-to-late 1990s, they happily moved in with a young, fledgling family and lived there entirely happily for quite a while.
But, as the family grew and as family life congregated around the kitchen - as it tends to do - the couple realised their galley kitchen layout didn’t suit their lifestyle and home/hearth huddles.
They mentioned this to an architect they met at a party, Helmut Stutterich who was working with Wilson Architecture at the time. He asked for a sketch there and then (on a napkin!) of what they had and said he’d see if he could come up with any thoughts.
He did that and more.
He gave a new kitchen plan+, but pretty much unbidden he also produced a drawing for something a lot more elaborate, which suggested near total demolition of Ngong and to rebuild in a more modern, bright, open way.
There was no going back.
An assessment of what worked as-was was carried out, so some of the back of the original dormer bungalow, including two attractive bedrooms plus the swimming pool, made it through, and just got upgrades.
Then, this, the all-new house, was built around and in front of it, involving lots of triple glazing, mono-pitch membrane roofs, clerestory windows (ie, just under roof level) and thoughtfully-placed additional glazing to frame and capture particular views.
Finishes then externally included lots of glass, smooth and sleek terracotta tiles, crisp render and then, the piece de resistance, immaculately layered Valentia slate and stone in columns, and pillars, works of art by a stonemason used by the main contractors, Rose Construction.
Meticulously worked, it mixes large corner or quoin pieces and then, smaller, almost shale-like stone slivers in between done with sculptural precision. Some of it is so well executed, it would look as lovely framed on an internal wall as an art piece, alongside the Knuttel paintings.
On over two acres of private landscaped grounds, it took about a year from start to finish, from 2008 to 2009 and the scale of upheaval meant moving out for the period, before coming back to its full glory, across over 7,000 sq ft of living and play/exercise space.
Ngong got its name from a previous owner, who’d spent time living in Africa, and it’s called after the Ngong hills in Kenya, mentioned too at the start of the movie Out of Africa.
Coincidentally when the current owners had gone to view it in the 1990s, they were already familiar with the name, as they had once holidayed in Africa and actually been around the real Ngong hills.
This Cork version is on the edge of Carrigaline in south Cork, at Kilnagleary, on-high and has views over the Owenbue valley to the west and the estuary beneath, just downriver of Carrigaline. The views go north towards the distnat hills' water tank by Rochestown and out to Cork airport too, while water and the ebb and flow of the tides is the most direct point of reference of all, from house and grounds.
There’s a definite lure of the sea for the owners/vendors, who took to sailing a few decades ago, made maximum use of of Ngong’s proximity to the marinas in Crosshaven (less than a 10-minute drive away) and who’ve since done Atlantic crossings among other voyages.
It’s up-anchor and trade down time now, and they are not going too far. They got a cracking site/property in Crosshaven with full harbour views, and are set to build once more, from scratch, in a style not dissimilar to Ngong. They have Cork architect John Morehead on board, who specialises in passive and near-passive builds and he has already done some other waterside one-offs along the Owenabue.
Preparing to leave the five-bed Ngong, the owners say not only has it been incredibly comfortable, but it has also been incredibly energy efficient, thanks to clever design for solar gain/heat retention, geothermal heating and things like triple glazing throughout.
The add that typically they use less than one tank of oil a year (900 litres) for heating, with solar panels helping with the demand, especially for the swimming pool. (Swimming pools normally decimate a property’s BER credibility and late this week, Ngong was awaiting its own assessment, time-consuming to complete as it’s so large/off-standard.)
Ngong comes to market this week with agents Sheila O’Flynn of Sherry FitzGerald in Cork, with involvement too of Roseanne De Vere Hunt from Sherry FitzGerald Country Homes, Christie’s affiliate in Ireland, with a €1.75m price guide.
It’s the latest €1m+ residential listing in Cork during 2020 and, quite incredibly, despite the Covid-19 pandemic (or, possibly, in some ways because of it) a considerable number of them have sold, or are ‘sale agreed.’
It looks like by year’s end, there’ll be over a dozen Cork properties selling for over this seven figure sum, from an apartment to city period gems, and country piles with land….it’s all about the lifestyle.
At Ngong, and despite the return of adult children from cities to ‘the nest’ for lockdown and its aftermath, the Covid-19 impact was definitely ameliorated by virtue of things like space, five or six bedrooms, lots of distinct airy living space, the gym, heated swimming pool and sauna, and the outdoor attractions.
The grounds of c two acres include a putting a green on synthetic grass, several sand bunkers, and even a short run of zip wire along the approach drive to the house for short-lived adrenaline rushes.
There’s also an enormous and tall garage/workshop/store, capable of taking several cars or small boats, masses of sports equipment, sails, surfboards and hobby gear, givn the outdoors activity options around Carrigaline, from sailing to swimming at spots like Myrtleville, Fountainstown and more.
As high as the garage is the double height atrium entrance in the reworked Ngong, once past a smaller hall, and with its feature staircase it links the house’s two main blocks, as well as the swimming pool/gym/’leisure wing’ to the back.
Finishes are universally high, and include lots of walnut, in furniture, built-ins – especially in the very capacious home office man living area, and in the flooring.
The layout is highly adaptable for most family stages, with two first floor bedrooms (left over from the original house, and updated) towards the back.
The main bedroom is on the ground floor, at one end, with a very large dressing room, extensively shelved, next to a boutique hotel-standard en-suite bathroom. This wing also contains useful utility/cloakrooms spaces, plus a back hall and second stairs up to an enormous double aspect playroom next to a first-floor family living rooms, served by a shower room.
There are views from up here over stubble farm fields to the back and access to a front balcony with great estuary views. With a little tweak, this wing could almost be entirely self-contained, and still leave a whole lot of home on the other side.
The far end houses two more bedrooms by the swimming pool, one with walk-in robe and access to a bathrooms which also joins with the hall, and also through to the pool.
The good quality pool is under a barn-like roof, and has a separate shower/changing rooms, a sauna, and the gym with its plethora of exercise equipment, and view over the pool room.
Much and all of this seems ancillary to the main living space, large and lofty, about 40’ end-to-end, and about 25’ deep, with a low-pitch roof, and clerestory windows, electrically operated.
It sheer size is sensibly broken down by the central presence of a double-aspect large wood-burning stove, facing the living room in one direction, and the kitchen/dining room in the other. It’s set into a Valentia stone case, well able to act as a heat sink, and a substantial stainless steel flue then continues up towards and through the roof.
The kitchen, and island is by Siematic, with banks of Miele appliances, and the pale stone-topped island is big enough for a family/visitors to gather around and still keep a Covid-aware social distance.
Lighting in the main comes from Germany, as does the triple glazing sourced via local company Leo West. The very high quality walnut joinery in places like the much-used home office of the living area/kitchen (which nicely is not remote/distant for maintaining family contact while home-working) was done by long-established Cork firm Lanes.
Out of sight, are things like CAT-5 cabling and nearly out of sight, but not sound are the many ceiling-mounted speakers for music and radio. Equally high spec is the security system, with monitored alarm, CCTV/video and several secure internal rooms which can be secured by magnetic locks.
Another example of ‘thinking things through’ for a family on the go is the layout on the drive for parking a number of cars, whilst the capacious garage has a charging point in place on a front wall for an electric car, with a sleek example from Elon Musk’s Tesla stable currently feeding off it.
Taking on the sale of the clearly high-spec Carrigaline home near the sea, strands and marinas, Sherry FitzGerald’s Sheila O’Flynn and Roseanne De Vere Hunt describe it as “a real show piece, privately set” with rooms laid out over its two levels for many different family activities and age ranges, from golf and putting practice to whizzing zip-wires.
They say “it's exceptionally impressive, and yet for such a spacious house, it is also a real home."
Spacious, bright, and laid out to track the sun (especially to frame sunsets,) they add “living at Ngong provides everything that growing you could want or need”.
VERDICT: Going, going....Ngong is Out of Africa, and into the Owenabue Valley with aplomb.
Pictures: Matteo Tuniz
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