Bohemian Rhapsody and enviable views of Cork city at No 1 Panorama Terrace in Sunday’s Well
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Sunday's Well, Cork city |
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€345,000 |
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Size |
88 sq m (947 sq ft) |
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Bedrooms |
3 |
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Bathrooms |
2 |
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BER |
E1 |
IF you are looking for a clever address to reflect your profession, No 1 Panorama Terrace Upper seems a smart choice for a photographer.
Actually, it’s a pretty smart option for anyone. It’s one of those lovely old city homes savoured by the few who know them.
Most won’t know the upper terrace, or the lower one for that matter, as both are set high above and well back, in a tier, from street level, above Sunday’s Well Road.
Looking up from the road, the upper terrace isn’t visible, but when you are up there, the city drops away below, fanning out in every direction, with sublime St Fin Barre’s Cathedral at the centre. A photographer could have a field day, especially if they had an interest in the built environment, like Pascal Ungerer, photographer-turned-artist, who bought No 1 11 years ago, along with his journalist partner (now wife), Liz Dunphy.
An artist’s eye is evident in the interior of No 1, where it’s lovely thick old walls are hung with beautifully curated artwork and stunning photography. Everything that was good about the house when the couple bought it in 2010 was nursed along and retained and any upgrades were subtly done.
Walking into the main living room is almost like walking into a painting, where everything is exactly where it should be for a still life, but still feels lived in, comfortable, elegant and gracefully bohemian.
This knack for capturing the essence of what it is that makes a house tick is a skill in itself, but then Pascal is the son of Strasbourg-born Tomi Ungerer, a celebrated illustrator, author, graphic designer and satirist, land lifelong supporter of humanitarian causes, who lived half his life on the Mizen Peninsula with his American wife Yvonne Wright and their family, since 1976.
Possibly, a bit like Panorama Terrace, not everyone in 1970s Ireland knew much about him, other than that he was an artist who had moved to a remote corner of Ireland. In fact his talent and output was prodigious: he published more than 140 books, translated into 30 languages, he was a magnificent illustrator of children’s books (also an illustrator for the New York Times in the 1950s), he was awarded the Hans Christian Andersen Prize in 1998, appointed the first Council of Europe Goodwill Ambassador for Children and Education in the noughties, and he was the first living artist to have a museum dedicated to his life and work in France.
Prior to his death, he had been working with University College Cork with a view to establishing an archive representative of his work in Ireland and Liz says quite a bit of his work is currently stored there, but not on show at the moment. The couple is lucky enough to have some of his work on their walls, along with Pascal’s, who completed a degree in Fine Art at London’s Goldsmith University a couple of years ago. He’s also a very fine photographer, judging by a series of photographs displayed upstairs which capture border posts in different eastern European countries at a time when the migration crisis was at its height.
So, given his artistic pedigree and Liz’s own innate flair for décor, it’s easier to appreciate why it is that No 1 Panorama Terrace Upper hits all the right notes for a home built in the mid-1850s. While retaining all of its period grace, it also benefitted under successive owners, including the addition of a small extension to house a bathroom downstairs: a slight re-jigging of the downstairs layout to open up the kitchen into the living room, giving both areas the benefit of the bay window and the light that comes with it, and some insulation work in the attic, which is floored, with a stira for access.
Since Liz and Pascal bought it, they have tried to upgrade something every year. Liz says they see themselves as custodians of the house, looking after it until it’s time to pass it onto someone else.
“We’ve put a lot of time, effort, love and money into the house over the years. We try to upgrade something every year, this year we put in a new kitchen and a new shower upstairs and retiled the upstairs bathroom floor.
“Everyone who lives here seems to do really sensitive and beneficial work and leaves the house that little bit better than it was when they bought it.
“The people who lived here before us did absolutely brilliant work. They also left the gorgeous mirror above the fireplace and we’re going to leave it too because we feel it belongs to the house.
“It feels like we’re just custodians of the house really, we’re there to mind it and then pass it on to someone else who will hopefully love it as much as we have,” Liz says.
They’ve been excellent custodians. A beautiful parquet floor in the living room has been well cared for. Original doors and upstairs original floors remain in place.
There’s even a piano, perfectly positioned in the living room, that belonged to a former resident of No 1, who used to play piano in the former Jury’s Hotel (now the River Lee Hotel) on Western Road.
“Pascal lived in West Cork and when he came to the city he would stay in Jury’s Hotel so he remembers the chap who used to play the piano, he used to play around town as well. So we decided to keep it, but we will leave it here for the new owners,” she says.
The new owners will acquire a home just minutes from the city centre that still manages to have a rural feel to it, probably because it’s set so high above and far back from the main road, surrounded by plenty of greenery.
Liz says a gentleman living on the lower terrace with a passion for gardening looks after communal paths and planting. The pathway from lower to upper terrace is lined with lots of lovely shrubbery.
“ There’s a great community spirit here,” says Liz.
She says the neighbours on the terraces are “the best you could wish for” and that many strong friendships have formed.
The fact that No 1 is sequestered at the end of the terrace was just the ticket during the pandemic, Liz says, when both herself and Pascal were working from home.
“ It was such a nice place to be tucked away and yet to still feel connected to the world outside.
“We started walking into town in the mornings for coffee before working during the pandemic and that’s become a little ritual now. I love being able to walk most places and not relying on a car to get around,” Liz adds.(Parking is by permit on the road below).
They’ve made the most too of a pedestrianised riverside path at the bottom of the road that runs out towards UCC and Fitzgerald’s Park on the Mardyke.
They’ll miss this when they move, Liz says, as well as the views from her upstairs study “where mostly the only sound is birdsong”.
The study is beautifully kitted out and on the wall is a gorgeous old letterpress tray with a myriad of tiny shelves she uses for post-its and business cards etc. Pascal found a couple of the trays in a shed in West Cork and another two are full of little curios such as shells and stones from travels, dried flowers, broken pottery.
“We like being able to repurpose old things and give them new life,” says Liz.
They’re off now to repurpose and breathe new life into another period home further east along the ridge that runs from Shanakiel and Sunday’s Well on towards Montenottle and Tivoli, leaving behind their beautiful three-bed, where the main bedroom has another gorgeous bay - in fact No 1 is the only home on the upper terrace with bay windows.
It also has a south-facing terrace at the top of a long, sloping garden where trees include a fig tree and a plum tree and where there’s a vegetable patch, strawberries, raspberries, lavender, wisteria.
The south facing patio is “a great place for entertaining” says Liz, and ideal for summer evenings.
To the rear of the patio, at the side of the house, is a covered in storage shed, wide enough to wheel the bins through from a small rear passageway, where there are two more small storage sheds and a high white-washed wall making the rear of the house very private.
The couple will be sad to see the house go, but hope it will bring as much pleasure to the next occupants as it did to them.
John Barry of Frank V Murphy & Co is the selling agent and he is guiding the 88sq m home at €345,000. He says the phone is hopping, with a good mix of interest, from first time buyers, to older people looking to downsize to convenient city living, to people returning from Dublin.
“Everyone is attracted to its location and condition. It ticks a lot of the boxes in terms of view/garden/privacy and it’s so well kept and presented,” he says
All the city centre charm Sunday's Well has to offer at a good price.
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