Major rebuild on €850k luxury hideaway home makes it a Mizen marvel

This is not the sort of ‘Casa’ that you’d expect to find off the beaten track, writes Property Editor tommy Barker

Now, that's a patio with a view. €850k Casa Dunmanus is on the northern shoreline of the Mizen peninsula. It's just gone public with agent Sean Carmody of Charles P McCarthy & Co Skibbereen

Mizen Peninsula, West Cork
€850,000
Size	280 sq m (2,900 sq ft)
Bedrooms	4 + 1
Bathrooms	5 + 1
BER	B2

IT’S been a long road to renovation, say the couple who saw the potential of this Mizen Head hideaway home when it came for auction nearly two years ago and where, now, the setting is about the only thing that hasn’t changed a whit.

Spectacular setting for Casa Dunmanus

Set on the northern shoulder of one of the south-west of Ireland’s more slender of the fistful of fingers and peninsulas, the Mizen Head, this house — with barely glimpsed traces of a 19th-century farmstead at its feet — looks over Dunmanus Bay, to the petite Sheeps Head peninsula, and to the far more brooding Beara peninsula stacked up behind.

New roof, glazing, wiring, bathrooms, plumbing - and   a B2 BER

Lie on the bed (or soak in the slipper bath) in the main, dormer east-facing bedroom here in the property with the exotic-sounding name Casa Dunmanus, with its entire gable wall of glass, and you are looking at waves lashing up on the craggy shoreline of Dunkelly West.

Wet, wet, wet. Roll top bath in the main bedroom to soak up the sea views

They roll, hit and smack ashore with a regularity that has gone on for millennia and millions of years: houses and farms and man’s imprint on the landscape may come and go, rise and fall, but a view like this? Truly timeless.

Dunkelly West is one of the quieter spots along the Mizen Head peninsula, which has a c 66 mile or 100 km circuit around it. Yet, just a fraction of visitors to the area venture to the northern shoreline, scenic and sheep-populated and all as it is.

Take the long view

Far busier is the southern flank of the Mizen, home to the likes of Ballydehob, Schull, Goleen and on to beaches at Barleycove, Crookhaven and the visitor centre at the Mizen light station itself. In terms of seasonal traffic and tourist hotspots, the peninsula’s two routes, north and south to the Mizen, are chalk and cheese, even though there’s only a few miles of narrow roads, rocky and heather-carpeted height and hill between them.

Midships at Casa Dunmanus

This Dunkelly West rebuilt and reimagined home, or self-styled ‘Casa,’ is only a 5-10 minute drive to pretty Goleen, its tiny and super-sheltered harbour and pier, and services (Goleen might be a five minute drive once you know the way and go a bit blithe on the area’s natural beauty and abundant ditches, but it’s ten minutes if your eyes are out on stalks.)

Porthole features on entrance double doors

The upscale West Cork home, effectively rebuilt and refitted and finished in the past 18 months to an uncommon standard and interior designed and plushly furnished across every square foot and inch, is the third house to stand on this particular footprint, an original farmstead on poorish land, rough grazing and commonage, dropping down towards the sea from the main road, ‘main’ such as it is.

The original farm is now home to four quite large houses, each on private acres and which were built in stone in the early 1990s by the Ballydehob-based builder/developer Vincent Coughlan, who was among the vanguard of those days in building in stone.

Mr Coughlan and a couple of German architects, Dietrich and Hildegard Eckhardt who’d fetched up in Ballydehob 40 years ago have left a rebooted legacy in stone that perseveres in West Cork, and far beyond too.

High, and mighty

Previous owners of this house were based in the UK, and had used it as a holiday home, and the other three houses are still in similar uses and ownerships, with the profile ‘so West Cork:’ one family is American, another is German and the third is from the UK.

Who’ll rock up now for this Dunmanus casa offer? It’s a place lifted head and shoulders above what it was as it hits c 30 years of age, redone by a Cork couple in the wider property and construction business, comfortable as any city penthouse or urban des res, only in a craggy and wild beauty spot.

Pop-out dormer

They’ve more than sampled it as a luxury retreat from the woes of the world, especially in the latter stages of Covid-19 and global pandemics which have confined the nation to Irish shores.

It’s coming to the open market with estate agent Sean Carmody of Charles P McCarthy auctioneers in Skibbereen, and he guides at €850,000. It had previous interest, he indicates, as an off-market offer, with UK bidders in the €800K+ price bracket though that sale didn’t close out in the end, so there’ll be lots of interest in his progress now that it’s on the open market.

The price hope is certainly at the upper echelon for this side of the Mizen Peninsula, while the past year has seen some very strong prices paid on the southern flanks, up to and over €1m, with one €1m example being a new build and part earth-sheltered three-bed house by the sandy and balmy (on a sunny day) Ballyrisode beach, with Fastnet views.

I can see your  Casa from here

So, there’s money at home and abroad at this sort of price level in West Cork and along the more scenic stretches of the Irish coastline after what’s been quite a quantum, lifestyle shift due to the coronavirus. Mr Carmody just needs to match a buyer with this sort of spending power with this less-trammelled location, less trendy, less obvious.

Someone who likes relative solitude, so, but might still have a very comfortable 4X4 for the backroads?

There’s an incredible quietness at this property, due to things like the heft of the build, high insulation levels, and triple glazing: you have to open the windows, or crack open a Velux, just to hear the sea, or the birds, or else just sit out in one of the several terraced and outdoor seating areas, finding a sheltered one as suits.

Set in a dip or a fold, with just enough height for sea views and which are best of all internally from the upper floor, it has been lifted from a rock-bottom G-BER to an impressive B2 BER, and spans c 3,000 sq ft over its two levels, with a mix of bedrooms and living areas at each of the two levels for a very adaptable home.

Plush bedrooms

It comes with four en suite bedrooms, two per floor, in the main block, while there’s a fifth bedroom in a stand-alone lofted section of the very original (ie 19th century) dwelling.

There are bedrooms on each of two levels, plus a one-bed guest apartment

That’s effectively a self-catering/Airbnb/guest suite option, with bedroom/living area, kitchenette and en-suite bathroom, with its own independent access, and is approached up a few steps of ancient, long-serving flagstones: it’s as old and redolent as it gets.

It takes a bit of detective work now to spot the old exterior stone of the first domestic incarnation here, the one-time primary residence on a large farm, as 1990s’ builder Vincent Coughlan’s masons too were good at their craft: the giveaway is the lichen on the older stone, testament to the purity of the sea air.

The owners, now the vendors, say there are similarities in what Mr Coughlan built here at Dunkelly West in this scattered cluster, and indeed a ramble down the grassy lane towards the sea reveals at least one or two other houses on the land with similar glazed gable sections.

First glimpse

Casa Dunmanus is being sold on 3.8 acres, of mostly wild land, with some scalloped lawn sections in the front beyond the terrace, creating a sort of soft start to the view up along Dunmanus Bay. The thread of white waves crashing on rocks is utterly hypnotic: go a few miles to the west, and the views out past the other peninsulas to the north, and to the enormity of the Atlantic are entirely different, personifying the wild in Wild Atlantic Way.

At the time of its purchase in an October 2019 auction, it was very dated and of its time, a bit shook perhaps from not being in full-time use, so the buyers rolled up their sleeves and got stuck into tackling every bit of the 1990s-build, from its stone walls in, and up.

They reroofed the entire, in slate, adding a pop-out section, new windows throughout putting in triple glazing, and fascias and soffits also have been replaced with low-maintenance materials.

Plumbing and wiring were deemed inferior to 21st century standards too, so that all got ripped out and replaced when renovations started in January 2020 when, “with Covid-19 restrictions coming into force in March, it became a long, long road to renovation,” say the owners.

Nothing was spared in the complete top-to-to overhaul by building company Better Built Homes, including all-new bathrooms, insulation, internal replastering, all-new plumbing, wiring with abundant high-quality chrome sockets and switches as tangible evidence, interior remodelling, adding in a boot room and a first-floor lounge, with window seat around a tall dormer protrusion, a sort of ship’s bridge eyrie for bay scanning vistas.

There’s one view in particular that trumps all others and, rather surprisingly, it’s not at any rocky sit-out section: it’s revealed the moment you step in the front door, a brand new, energy-efficient ope with porthole window.

From here, there’s a long view right through this whole side of the house, past one room after another with open corridor access, so there’s perhaps 70’ of linked interior sections, culminating in a glass gable, with the sea and Dunmanus bay off in the near and far distance. It’s just the perfect ‘money shot.’

Glass wall divide

Other clever uses of glass, and the plentiful internal accommodation, include the glass wall divide between the central kitchen/dining room and the far end/gable living room by the stairs, it both divides and reveals, and snuggles up next to an open fireplace in the scene-stealing, full-with, full-on living room with its array of seating options.

Sitting pretty

How many seats does one house need? That’s a question that comes to mind on a visit, there are enough sofas, armchairs and other options to seat a large house party, while the dining table seats eight, at ease.

Then, there are nearly as many places again to sit, sprawl, recline languidly or hop about on at the first floor’s mid-ships’ living room, with large en-suite bedrooms and capacious wardrobe storage at either end, with upstairs underfoot plushness and comfort thanks to soft carpeting, sourced from Cork city company Sless.

First floor sitting room

The kitchen is a world until itself, done by David Lane Kitchens, Little Island in Cork, with twin ovens, elaborate induction hob with inbuilt extract, with creamy white stone/composite worktops above painted units, and the island, while the plethora of appliances include a wine cooler fridge, tall concealed fridge and separate freezer, either side of the side-by-side ovens, and a Quooker boiling water tap.

Main kitchen

Tiling in the range of fully-tiled en-suite bathrooms were sourced from Delforno Tiles at the Kinsale Road roundabout, and paints throughout on walls and panelling are in Farrow and Ball colours, ranging across light to dark greys in the main, with ceilings also in pale greys.

Furniture and decorative items were widely sourced, with lots of Meadows and Byrne touches. Overall, there’s quite the country meets urban look to the photos and art on display, mixed with some marine motifs, not overdone, and in terms of décor it eschews the rustic West Cork design aesthetic for more ‘swish.’.

Interiors of note

Next owners can buy the entire look as-is if they so wish, as the departing vendors, with their work done after a full 12 months or so (due to lockdown and supplier delays,) are prepared to sell fully furnished.

Apart from the comfort and finishes, unseen investment has gone into technology, such as the smart heating set-up with four zones (water, upstairs, downstairs and guest flat) all able to be controlled by phone app, as can the video/external CCTV cameras which can be viewed from afar on a smartphone.

Self-contained apartment

As a back-up to the main house and its guest apartment there’s now a newly-constructed, block-built detached garage forming a sort of courtyard cluster of welcome on the gravel drive, with simple graded steps between it and the raised garden section. With a high, open to the rafters roof, the garage can be lofted for additional storage, and more than likely, with boating and bathing equipment.

Within a walk of the house is a stunning swimming spot, a small cove and with deep water pier and the clearest of waters to explore.

A 15-20 minute drive away, up and over the shoulder of hills towards the end of the peninsula, is sandy Barleycove beach, or the beach at the back of Crookhaven, or the azure-water beach and white sands at Ballyrisode near Goleen. Within a c 20 minute drive too are Three Castles Head, or Schull, and Cork city and airport are an hour and a half off by car.

And, at the Mizen? Next stop, America.

VERDICT: Not the sort of house you’d expect off the beaten track......