'Luke' away now: Opportunity knocks at €460k Knocklaun in heart of Cork's St Luke's Cross area

An Edwardian home in the heart of Cork City given 21st century comforts

Not long on the market is 2 Knocklaun. The  St Luke's Cross, Cork Edwardian home is guided at €460,000 by Fiona Waldron of Auctioneera. Picture: John Roche

St Luke's Cross, Cork City
€460,000
Size	171 sq m (1,820 sq ft)
Bedrooms	4
Bathrooms	3
BER	Exempt

IT must be quite disappointing to do all the necessary renovations to a period property and not get an enthusiastic, appreciative ‘Well Done! Full Marks! stamp of approval for it.

2 Knocklaun St Luke's Cork via agents Auctioneera

So it often is when a property is a protected structure and thus of an age and special character that it is exempt from the necessity (and/or indignity) of a BER assessment by default.

But, while being BER exempt can spare the blushes of some older era properties who’d struggle to rise about a lowly, basement-level ‘G’, it ignores the spriteliness that can be injected into a venerable property that acknowledges age, but presents and performs well despite it.

It’s thus with No 2 Knocklaun, an early 1900s Edwardian-era private home just above St Luke’s Cross, above Cork City’s Ballyhooley Road, with a commanding west-facing view down to ‘the cross’ and up towards Military Hill.

View out from 2 Knocklaun

If it had been assessed back in 2016, when its current owners bought it, it would have been a G, for sure.

Now, it would be well up the scale: might it even be a C1 or a B3? Better? If you were to buy it, might you be tempted to do the full MOT? If a solid B, it might even qualify for a reduced mortgage too.

No 2’s back for sale after a brief flurry on the market in 2019, when it was listed for just a few weeks (guide back then had been €395,000) and it featured here at the time also.

Grace, updated

Its owners had hoped to buy elsewhere in ’19, but were outbid: so they regrouped at No 2 Knocklaun (no hardship?), did further work and grew their family too.

When they bought back in 2016, it had been a long-time family home adapted for an older person and needed a lot of reordering and updates.

They had bought for €270,000 in ’16, before their own two children arrived and got stuck in doing a fairly full programme of work, while living in Dublin (she’s from Cork, he’s from Northern Ireland.)

They did new double glazed windows, in sliding sash frames, and fitted an energy efficient new front door in dark blue (all from Classic Windows); they rewired, replumbed, did heating, new bathrooms (there’s now one en suite bedroom) and they did a larger kitchen too, designed by the man of the house, who had trained as a carpenter/joiner.

Bright kitchen thanks to rooflight

First floor bedroom with en suite

Main external walls, front and back are now insulated, and other internal walls got plaster reskimmed, so it all feels incredibly fresh and quite sleek, yet clearly doffs its cap to its 1910 roots, with five original fireplaces (they’d need to be permanently sealed to get the best possible ’notional’ BER) and two of them have new fire backs.

The hall has kept its original encaustic tiling, and some of the bedroom floors are polished original pine boards, while most internal doors are stripped and waxed pine, a look that’s barely waxed and waned since coming into ‘vogue’ after the 1960s: it’s quite timeless.

Main family bathroom with shower and freestanding bath

Picture and dado rails survived or got reinstated in some rooms also, but not across the front exterior wall of the main reception room, where there’s a lovely wide bay window with built-in seat with hinged storage (pic, below), and timber board ceiling (the house next door has a double-height bay, not so common on this terrace).

No 2 carries a €460,000 AMV now with estate agent Fiona Waldron of Auctioneera, and it’s just launched a week, with viewings just booked in so there’s no offers yet showing on the Auctioneera online bid register.

Kitchen at  Knocklaun's No 2

Its real appeal is its walk-in condition, and décor: there’s nothing at all left to do to it, really, top to bottom, and there’s comfort and character in rooms on each of its three levels, with scope for up to four bedrooms, with attic access higher up.

Those who don’t want or need four bedrooms may choose to have a top floor living room with dormer window, and others on the terrace have opted for a first floor ‘piano nobile,’ but now this mid-level front room is the en suite main bedroom.

When first built, these homes had separate WCs and bathrooms on the first floor return: these are now joined at No 2, which has a contemporary freestanding oval bath and separate shower.

Externally, there’s a long front garden with lawn and rear courtyard, which backs up to a sandstone bluff of cliff, with The Crescent homes off Gardiners Hill above, back here.

No 5 Knocklaun made €285k in 2013, and No 4 went to market in January of this year as a do-er up, guiding €295,000, and is sale agreed over that: No 4’s buyer might do well to cast an envious eye over No 2, but only dream of getting work done to this level with any ease, given current stresses in construction and labour markets.

Lofty look

Front view impresses

Knocklaun’s houses are reached up a flight of stone steps from the Ballyhooley Road, where there’s on-street car-parking with permit for residents, and it’s a minute’s walk to St Luke’s Cross itself, where there are bars, cafes, shops, live music centre and nearby hotels such as The Address, and the Montenotte. The city centre’s a stroll away, via MacCurtain Street, while the emerging north quays are finding a 21st energy, with the Dean Hotel open and Apple about to move into brand new offices on Horgans Quay.

VERDICT: Having been frustrated in their move plans back in 2019, No 2’s vendors have their ‘ducks in a row’ in 2022, with a rental sorted by the harbour, while they’ll then go home hunting for a property with more garden for their growing brood.