Did Cork's €10.7m Lotto balls hop in your direction? Try Hop Island for size

Waterfrontage and the chance of a second house site at The Lodge,  Hop Island,  Rochestown Cork Cork for sale via Savills Cork

Rochestown, Cork Harbour
€715,000
Size	163 sq m (1,775 sq ft)
Bedrooms	4
Bathrooms	2
BER	C1

IF you won €10.7 million on the Irish Lotto — as someone in Cork’s Rochestown did last weekend — there’s a fair chance you might look around for a bigger/better/different home to live in, to rear a family in… even if you were perfectly happy where you live right now. Until now.

Might the dream home (“It Could be Yours?”) be up the road?  Down the road? Along the coast. Overseas. Or a city penthouse apartment, handy for the shops, boutiques, and clubs?

Might there be something close to hand? Down the road?

In Cork’s Rochestown catchment, and dipping into Douglas, there are a few possible contenders for a home-hunter with a million or few to spend, say a half a dozen or so high-end houses actively on the market as 2020 ends (and, you could always make an approach to the occupants of a house you’d always secretly coveted, and make them an offer they shouldn’t refuse!)

Cork's most expensive market offer in years: Kennitt House Rochestown Road Cork is priced at €3.25m by Lisney

Of those openly for sale, currently, the dearest Cork city home on the market is Kennitt House, with over 6,000 sq ft, on groomed gardens opposite the Rochestown Park Hotel.

Priced at €3.25 million, it's an incredibly upgraded original Arts and Crafts home, and which featured extensively here some months ago, clearly one of Cork’s best finished private homes (or, ‘residences,’ as they tend to say in Rochestown.)

Lough Mahon House, near Hop Island in Rochestown,  guides at €2.35m

Further along the Rochestown Road, out past ‘the village,’ is Lough Mahon House, even larger at 7,000 sq ft-plus, on over two acres with water views: it’s priced at €2.35m.

Ortum 3 Oakwood Maryborough Hill Cork, under offer with  Sherry FitzGerald, guiding €1.5 million

Up Maryborough Hill is the architecturally accomplished and contemporary Ortum, a few doors away from Ronan O’Gara’s Cork home and the Maryborough House Hotel, guided at an even €1.5 million.

Move elsewhere around the suburbs, and there’s a bit to tempt, at and over the €1m mark, though quite incredibly there’s been a strong uptake of €1m-plus Cork home sales wrapped up in 2020, the year of the pandemic. The Irish Examiner Property & Home supplement will feature the top results, highlights and low-key sale surprises in our End of Year Review/2021 Preview on January 2.

Cork harbour view from The Lodge Hop Island Cork

The Lodge is south-aspected, at the indoor arena side of two acres, and has views east over the water for sunrises

Meanwhile, late to the wintry market in Cork’s upper-end residential selection is Rochestown’s The Lodge, seen here. While it’s certainly not the dearest offer at €715,000, it’s certainly one of the more unusual, billed as a rare offer as it’s got an island address; over 500’ of water frontage and enough ground to develop at least one other detached house. Sorry, residence.

The Lodge is listed with auctioneer Michael O’Donovan of Savills, who says it’s got a “unique harbour setting, with breathtaking views".

interior at The Lodge Hop Island Cork, guiding €715,000 via Savills Cork

Dating to the 1980s, with a distinctive internal layout in its main, multi-aspected living room, it’s a four-bed home of c 1,750 sq ft, and its two acres includes a section which has a now lapsed planning permission  for a second dwelling.

The Lodge is one of less than a half a dozen houses on Hop Island, just north of the main Douglas-Passage West Monkstown R610 road, across the way too from the old Passage/Monkstown/Crosshaven rail line, now a very popular waterside amenity walking route and targeted by Cork City Council for upgrades and improved links/possible boardwalk by Rochestown itself.

It’s a leafy and green island of c 20 acres, reached by a narrow strip of road or isthmus with water east and west of the link, and will be familiar to many Cork families as the access to Hop Island Equestrian Centre, with a 20+year legacy of horse activity, treks and livery under owners the O’Driscoll family. (That period property, Island House which dates to the late 1700s, with riding arenas, stables and 2.7 acres was on the market in the late 1990s and in 2005, at prices from €1.5 to as much €3 million when the centre sought to relocate.) 

The Lodge is south-aspected, at the indoor arena side of two acres, and has views east over the water for sunrises.

It’s a bit dated but gets a credible C1 BER, and the property mix includes two garages and three stables. 

Savills Cork got €895,000 for Whimbrel, on the Rochestown Road

Near Hop Island, Savills recently sold a five-bed detached Whimbrel, on 0.6 acres with water frontage for €895,000, €100k over its AMV after competitive bidding.

The 500’ water frontage here is a real draw, as is the possibility of a planning grant once more for at least one more dwelling on the grounds. Because of the access, and passage approach by the walking route, any medium to larger-scale development is unlikely.

VERDICT: Merry Isthmus.