Magic carpet ride? A good architect could make €720k Beech Crest one of Crosshaven's best homes

Largely unchanged in over 160 years, Victorian Beech Crest is ready for a radical makeover: who'll cherish the mid-1900s carpets, though?

Harbour home beckons as Crosshaven's Beech Crest comes to market for the first time in almost 70 years

Crosshaven, Cork Harbour
€720,000
Size	236 sq m (2,540 sq ft)
Bedrooms	5
Bathrooms	3
BER	G

THERE’S no mistaking the location of Beech Crest - this Victorian home is part, and parcel, of Cork harbour’s Crosshaven, built in the mid 1800s when the former fishing village and garrison fortification found its feet as a favoured seaside destination for Cork city’s wealthy families, who sited comfortable villas here for their holidays, seaside facilities and sport.

Bay windows, and swirly carpets to boot, at Crosshaven's Beech Crest

Though there are five beaches within a few kilometers of this fine, detached villa home, the spelling is that of the tree, the beech rather than beach, and it got its name from the man who bought it as a family home in the 1950s.

And, as it now comes for sale for the first time in almost 70 years, Beech Crest is as robust and mature as any regal woodland beech, with its origins attributed in historical records to the landowning Hayes family of Crosshaven House, who had 300 years of local involvement with ‘Crosser.’

Since built around 1850 and facing Currabiny over the Owenabue River and estuary, Beech Crest would since have seen the continuing development of Crosshaven and its bays; the move and arrival of the 1720-founded Royal Cork Yacht Club from Cobh to sit almost on its doorstep in the early 1960s; the arrival of a rail line in the early 1900s and the spread since of boatyards, boat berths and marinas, piers and, more recently, people.

Close-up of Beech Crest

The past couple of decades have seen Crosshaven and its surrounding bays’ year-round population soar (pop was 2,500 back in 2016), and the work-from-home phenomenon has, if anything, raised its appeal to a whole new level.

That means there’s going to be very widespread interest in the possibilities coming with this rare property offering, a detached period home, on very decent grounds of scale.

Pleny of scope in this house's tiered grounds, with  two access points

It has two access points, 100 metres from the former Grand Hotel which was built in the 1880s, shortly after Beech Crest and its neighbouring pairs of semi-detached and terraced homes were constructed, on large grounds between the village’s Lower and Upper Roads.

Beech Crest comes to a early Spring 2022 market with estate agent Laura Pratt of Lisney, who guides the very intact five-bed home on 0.4 of a village acre at €720,000.

As it stands, it’s got immense charm, and an interior which speaks of mid-1900s comforts and decor, from flamboyant coloured vinyl tiles in a kitchen by a Stanley cooker to its wool carpets, with large swirly patterns.

Vinyl revival?

Piece de resistance now, and into the future, are the interlinked ground floor reception rooms, each with deep canted bay windows, each of them big enough to take a pair of armchairs for moments of idling, tea sipping, reveries and simply watching the world go by, from dinghies to RIBs, trawlers to yachts, and on to superyachts, all on the water 50 metres away to the north.

Sitting by the dock of the bay....

These interlinked rooms, with sliding pocket doors between them, are each c 15’ by 15’, with an extra 5’ feet projecting into the so-aptly bay windows, and they share the same wonderful carpet: think of having a take on painter Vincent Van Gogh’s Starry Nights at your feet…

Could almost be Crosser......Van Gogh's Starry Nights

Elsewhere, side-entered Beech Crest has its kitchen and back-up kitchen/utility and service rooms plus guest WC to the back, beyond the hall.

Above on the first floor are three bedrooms plus bathroom, and the top/attic level has two bedrooms to the front and two other rooms to the back, with just a few old metal and glass skylights currently letting light into this top level.

Period authenticity, and mid C20th furniture

Lisney’s Ms Pratt says Beech Crest is a remarkable and spectacular period home, now an executor sale for a family who grew up here, full of architectural features and character expected from a house of this age but says whilst “it’s need of modernisation and upgrades throughout, it presents a unique opportunity for an individual to restore it to its former glory.”

The National Inventory of Architectural Heritage notes its bay windows, limestone sills, sash windows and the ‘tripartite’ first floor front bedroom windows with plaster pediments, corbels etc and observes that “apparently built by the Hayes family of Crosshaven House for their grandchildren, this finely-executed house has retained many of its historic features including sash windows and various artistic embellishments intact. Set overlooking Crosshaven harbour, it makes a significant contribution to the town,” it adds.

A nearby property of similar Victorian vintage, one of a pair of origins semis, has a large contemporary extension on its far side, perhaps giving some pointers as to what might get grafted-on here too, under a good architect’s hand and eye, blending something new and eco-efficient onto a period buy with great reception rooms, and the untapped potential to the more private rear which is south-aspected.

Ms Pratt says the site is two-tiered, with access/parking on both levels and steps down between them.

Some of the neighbours have extended (see far left of pic)

New owners might look to build something on the higher portion (near the national school) at some later stage, perhaps for a family member, but right now, it’s being offered as an entire in one lot, with enormous scope.

The Price Register shows just over 40 sales in and around Crosshaven in excess of €500,000 in the past decade, and just seven in excess of €700,000.

The very latest was the sale recorded just last month of Prospect Villas, where No 1, a seven-bed c 3,000 sq ft semi-d tipped over its summer 2021 AMV of €690,000 to sell for an even €700k.

Take the plunge

VERDICT: Beech Crest is a Crosshaven original, with period roots, links assigned to the Hayes family of old, and with a bright new future in the right new and next hands.