Douglas Close design with first-floor living room has been much copied

Property Editor Tommy Barker finds two examples and variations this week, each at €440,000, in Douglas and in Ballincollig

Mon, 06 Sep, 2021 - 00:58

Tommy Barker Property Editor

Douglas Close, Douglas/Leslie's Arch Ballincollig
€440,000 each
Size	1,490 sq ft (Douglas) 1,720 sq ft (Old Quarter Ballincollig)
Bedrooms	3 (Douglas) 4 (Leslie's Arch)
Bathrooms	3/4
BER	C1/B2

IT’S just over two decades since the tall townhouses at Cork’s Douglas Close were built, within a minute’s walk of the suburban landmark Fingerpost.

And, if imittation is the sincerest form of flattery, well, this design/design has been much emulated across Cork (see below)

As the greater Douglas area has continued to grow and indeed sprawl up the hills of Maryborough, Rochetown and Frankfield, the 17 homes here in nestled inner suburban Douglas Close have kept their own quiet counsel amid the hub-bub.

Front of 3 Douglas Close, for sale with Cohalan Downing

Given the location, within a walk of every amenity in Douglas village on the flat, they’ve always been popular with couples, empty-nesters and traders down, and that’s the inquiry and interest profile agent Suzanne Tyrrell of Cohalan Downing is beginning to see on her first viewings.

She guides the three-storey mid-terraced well-built townhouse at €440,000, and the Price Register indeed shows the last few resales here in the mid €400ks.

Designed by Roderick Hogan Associates, the scheme which was considered daring in its day and definitely pitched at a financially comfortable niche, was done in the 1990s by Brian Forrest, and built by Murnane & O’Shea.

First-floor living room at 3 Douglas Close

Prices started in the ‘old’ currency of Ir£135,000, rising during the boom to the mid €500ks, and in one case, pre-Price Register, one made a reported €700k.

Update: exterior of mid-terraced 78 Leslies Arch, OIld Quarter, Ballincollig, also for sale with a €440k guide (see details below)

They set a bit of a trend for three-storey homes, introducing or reintroducing the period home notion of the first floor living room, or ‘piano nobile,’ along with a split level ground floor with kitchen/diner and casually living area with courtyard access.

Above, on the first and second floor are three bedrooms, one of them en suite, and No 3’s in good overall condition, just needing a bit of a decorative update.

Interior at 3 Douglas Close, with agents Cohalan Downing

Given the target market, of traders-down and those who want low-maintenance or a lock-up and leave in a gated development (one of Cork’s first in the day), Douglas Close homes can pose a question to older buyers who might be looking at scarce single storey living in advancing years: how are your hips and knees, given the three-storey layout and first floor, formal living room?

No 3’s vendor has been living overseas for a while and it has been rented for a period, and so is ready for a stamp of a new occupant’s personality. It has a reserved parking space, south-facing back patio garden, a C1 BER, and a secure location second to none.

VERDICT: Easy living, and steps to keep you mobile.

MEANWHILE, across town..... there’s more than a passing similarity between the two mid-terraced townhouses here — same architect, same first-floor, full-width living room feature, same price too, but there’s a decade or so between them in their delivery.

78 Leslies Arch, also for sale with a €440k guide via Sherry FitzGerald's Norma Healy

No 78 Leslie’s Arch in Ballincollig’s Old Quarter is a mid-terraced, three-storey townhouse, priced at €440,000 by estate agent Norma Healy of Sherry FitzGerald and it shares the same design team as the Douglas Close property (above), Hogan Architecture, founded by Roddy Hogan in the mid 1970s.

Ground floor interior at 78 Leslies Arch

Unlike its €440k Douglas Close counterpart, though, No 78 Leslie’s Arch is a larger, c 1,720 sq ft home, and is a four-bed, not a three-bed, with an already mature and well-landscaped rear garden, in the Continental-style ‘Boulevard’ section of Old Quarter.

There’s a broad buyer appeal, says Sherry Fitz’s Norma Healy who has viewings/second viewings now picking up as the summer lull ends.

She adds that No 78 has the Regional Park on one side, and the bustling town on the other, noting that Ballincollig continues to boom, with a strong employment base and expanded services, shops, schools and more.

The Price Register shows a broad swathe of sales at Leslies Arch, nearly 100 over more than a decade, with No 78 itself showing at 370k in summer 2019.

VERDICT: No 78’s in walk-in, step up order.