Head for East Cork, not California, for this Pebble Beach beauty 

A three-tier garden and terrific seaviews are where it's at in this Guileen home

Guileen Adrianna

Guileen. East Cork
€360,000
Size	135 sq m (1450 sq ft)
Bedrooms	3
Bathrooms	2
BER	C1

“We had great summers down there,” recalls Paddy O’Leary of his childhood holidays in Guileen where his parents paid by installments for a thatched cottage that cost the princely sum of IR£150 back in 1963.

It gave Paddy and his four siblings terrific freedom during the summer months, just a stone’s throw from a couple of beaches and a pier busy with fishermen.

Beach in Guileen

Then they all grew up and moved on and the house more or less fell down over time. In 1998 the decision was made to demolish it and essentially rebuild it from scratch.

“There was a great foundation, built on stone and rock, it was hard work cutting into that rock. And there was no indoor toilet or running water, so we had to tackle all of that,” Paddy says.

“When we rebuilt it, we put in mains water and a biocycle for waste water, like the rest of the village.” 

In the place of the old thatch there now stands a smart dormer, with a name that reflects its owner’s love of golfing. Pebble Beach is a very different product to the house that went before it - gone is the compact two bed, where all of the living was done in one big room and where five siblings shared one of two bedrooms. In its place is a 1,450 sq ft three-bed home.

The main living space takes up more than half of the ground floor where there’s also a bedroom and a family bathroom. There are two more bedrooms overhead, one with an ensuite.

As Paddy points out, there are some nice quirks to Pebble Beach, not least the bridge from the first floor landing, accessed via double doors, that takes you straight out to a raised timber deck, from where there are "fantastic views of the sea".

 Or you can continue on up to the next tier, laid to lawn, where there’s another suntrap decking area, a quiet spot for relaxing, surrounded by some nice planting, thanks to Paddy's green-fingered wife.

Below, at ground level, is a small stone patio, accessed from the dining area. 

In essence, there are three tiers of garden to choose from, spread over one third of an acre, designed to catch sunshine at different times of the day.

Paddy, whose family business is Presentation Binding in Dublin Hill, has moved house on four occasions and he’s on the move again. Pebble Beach has been his permanent residence for the past 17 years but a site in nearby White Bay has caught his eye.

“We’ve been driving past it for ages and thought how nice it would be to look out over the harbour from the sitting room. We thought about it, and put in an offer,” he says. Adrianna Hegarty of Hegarty Properties is handling the sale of the dormer which carries an AMV of €360,000. She recently reached sale agreed on The Anchorage, a beautifully restored old Famine Cottage, perched over the bay in Guileen. It prompted a bidding war and went sale agreed at €480,000, from a starting point of €355,000. It’s a smaller house than Pebble Beach, albeit closer to the sea.

Two years ago, the only remaining thatch in the village sold for its asking price of of €335,000. Ms Hegarty says the competition for The Anchorage illustrates just how hot property has got in East Cork.

She describes Pebble Beach as a “detached coastal gem” “ in a village setting, with an impressive range of amenities on its doorstep, including windsurfing, kayaking ,powerboating, rock and beach fishing, "with some of the best inner-harbour sea angling in Ireland”. Open water swimming is also in the mix. Paddy swims all year 'round. 

Ms Hegarty's already seeing interest from potential buyers in search of a holiday home, as well as more locally-based queries from the Whitegate/ Aghada area, from people interested in a move to Guileen. 

VERDICT: If The Anchorage is anything to go by, Pebble Beach will fly.