Country living – in a totally modern home for €545,000

Cusloura, Macroom
€545,000
Size	325 sq m (3,500 sq m) inc garage
Bedrooms	4
Bathrooms	3
BER	B1

ALTHOUGH it looks for all the world like a charming old farmhouse that’s been occupying its scenic hillside site at Cusloura for at least a hundred years, this mid-Cork property is both modern and energy-efficient.

Using the footprint of an original ruined farmhouse, the owners built a new timber-framed one in 2008 using lime-plastered walls, pink doors, sash windows, and curving dormers to give it an old-world appearance while putting in geothermal heating to achieve an impressive B1 energy rating.

Secluded and tranquil amidst the gently sloping hills of the Boggeragh Mountains, 11km from Macroom, the property is a busier place than you might expect because the owners have for several years been operating two craft enterprises from there — a cheese business and a seaweed-based skincare company.

Back in the early 2000s, Fiona Burke, an engineer turned cheesemonger, identified the one-acre site with a ruined farmhouse as an ideal place to base her business selling artisan cheese at farmers markets in West Cork and Kerry.

The purchase and installation of a large Dutch timber chalet — providing accommodation for her, her partner Christian, and their three children who were born subsequently, until their new farmhouse was built.

The chalet became an office for the cheese business, and is now the centre of operations for Fiona’s skincare business where she makes creams, oils, and balm, using seaweed and other natural ingredients.

Construction on the new farmhouse started in 2007 and took a year to complete. The original plan was renovation but doubts about the foundations meant a change of plan just three weeks before construction was due to start.

“We wanted it to be traditional so we used features which include half-doors, galvanised gutters, a slate roof, and hardwood sash windows. The walls have traditional lime plaster and hemp insulation, and the dormer windows have curved roofs to soften the look, making them look a little like the ones you see in thatched cottages," says Fiona, adding that many people who visit think it’s renovated not new.

The interior has a whole range of traditional-style features including timber ceiling beams, pendant lighting, and antique pine doors. 

"We have a hand-carved elm staircase that was made for us by the builder who is a skilled craftsman,” she says.  

Spanish terracotta tiles were used for flooring in the kitchen while most of the other rooms have oak and ash floors.

The kitchen is a traditional country farmhouse one with creamy buttermilk-coloured units, a Belfast sink, and hardwood countertops. 

“The doors were hand-made for us by a friend who is a carpenter,” says Fiona, who filled the house with old furniture and covered the walls with colourful prints and paintings. “Many of these were painted by artists I met at farmers' markets, and some came from fleas markets and antique shops.” 

The entrance is picture-perfect country farmhouse with pot plants on the stoop and a pink latched timber door leading into a porch with an antique carved chair. There's a pretty photograph in the property brochure for which the family’s two dogs obligingly posed at the entrance.

Inside the porch there’s a timber-floored hallway with antique door, timber beams, and a scattering of colourful prints and paintings. Double doors at one side of the hallway lead into an extra spacious oak-floored sitting room with a solid-fuel stove and five large sash windows. A multipurpose room, it is used as an office, for playing music and for watching TV and chilling out.

A door at the rear of the hallway leads to a guest WC, while one at the side leads to the kitchen which, in addition to its buttermilk units, has open shelving and two large antique dressers — one pink and one green.

The kitchen has a set of French doors at the front, and a door to the side that leads into a second timber-floored sitting room with a stove. To the rear of the property there is a utility room as well as a large attached garage. 

At the top of the elm carved staircase there’s a bathroom and four large bedrooms (one en-suite) all with sloped ceilings and ash flooring.

While the features and the decor are traditional, the geothermal heating, which gives the house its B1 BER rating, is modern. Fiona’s engineering degree came in useful for the research involved. “It’s efficient and easy to maintain — you have constant heat and the house is cosy and dry,” she says.

At a short distance from the site is the 90 sq m Dutch timber chalet which has a kitchen living room, a large workshop/sunroom, one bedroom, a bathroom, and a utility room.

Additional outbuildings on the one-acre site include a cheese house in a converted outbuilding with an attached greenhouse used for growing vines.

Built in front of a sloped wooded hillside, the house has views of green fields and forested hills.

Quoting a guide of €545,000, Tom Heffernan of Heffernan Estates says this is a unique property with space and a range of outbuildings, and offers a variety of lifestyle options.

“It’s very well equipped for home enterprises but the chalet could also be used for Airbnb, for teenagers or for guests," Mr Heffernan says. 

“The property is rural but not isolated — just a 10-minute drive from the new N22 Cork/Killarney route bypassing Macroom and bringing Cork City and airport within a 40-minute commute." 

Fiona is now planning to move her family and her business nearer the sea because she needs closer access to seaweed to make her Little Red skincare products: “I love the house and its site and would pack them up and take them with me if only I could,” she says.

VERDICT: A substantial country house with a lot of home working options