Probably the best tiny pad in the parish? Proud Danish owner of €170k Cork city home thinks so too

Shandon area home gets sensitive upgrades from hands-on owner who, it turns out, was just passing through

Interior of the 535 sq ft No 4 Courtneys Avenue, off  Roman Street,  Cork. Agent  Timothy Sullivan guides at €170,000

Shandon, Cork City Centre
€170,000
Size	50 sq m (535 sq ft)
Bedrooms	1 + mezzanine
Bathrooms	1
BER	C2

IS No 4 Courtneys Avenue 'the best house renovation in and around Cork’s Shandon area?'

Small, but perfectly reformed

To borrow a rather obvious line linking to the house’s restorer, Danish-born Daniel Fox who unsurprisingly is a lover of all things Carlsberg, it is, indeed, ‘Probably the Best Small House in the Parish’.

Guess where? Cork, probably

The globe-travelling Dane came to Cork for work two and a half years ago, had what’s probably one of the most productive couple of years’ pandemic times, taking on a whole-house renovation (albeit of a tiny 50 sq m) home as the level of rents in the city “are just insane” he says.

So, trained chef Daniel got a loan instead. He bought No 4 Courtneys Avenue,  under Shandon’s Steeple in September 2020, and rolled up his sleeves, sleeping in the shell of a house for much of the period, even when there was no shower and no front door: “it was quite the same as camping,” he says quite philosophically.

Old flagstones at the back of 4 Courtneys Avenue with Shandon Steeple views above

The able and amiable Dane, whose father is English, rapidly made himself at home in Cork, making firm and fast friends, loving the multi-cultural feel around Shandon Steeple and the North Cathedral, from Europeans and Scandi blow-ins like himself to arrivals from Africans, as well as the religious mix of all faiths who flocked to the nearby streets and lanes, such as Roman Street, Chapel Street, Chapel Hill, Church Street, Cathedral Road and the like.

It’s long been touted as Cork’s ‘left-bank area’ getting only a very slow gentrification and still with a hardy band of “Corkonians, is that what they’re called?” Daniel asks almost rhetorically.

Work on his compact city home finished up just last month, and as the job in food production/engineering he’d come to Cork for didn’t fully engage him, the energetic 34-year old is off again, back to his native Copenhagen.

The eldest of five, he credits his father who is an engineer with instilling practical skills in all of his offspring and in giving him the confidence to tackle a building job like he - inadvertently - took on at No 4 Courtneys Avenue.

Mezzanine

He admits that when he first bought, he rather naively thought he'd just be doing simple jobs, like a kitchen or bathroom upgrade.

But, things began to crumble when he started hacking back, exposing bad build practices in recent decades, black mould and even  rot, though Daniel more kindly says the condition of much of the later-added material was, eh,  “questionable."

So, he went at it full tilt, taking out floors, redoing the roof and strengthening roof timbers, knocking and rebuilding a tiny 1990s extension, doing windows, heating, insulation, electrics and plumbing, and redoing walls in breathable lime and hemp plaster instead of the more hard cement which can seal problems into old stone walls and let them fester.

Old yellow 'slob' brick in the fireplace arch contrasts with exposed stone and lime and hemp render

In fact, as he departs, he’s compiled a small, illustrated eight-page booklet giving some of the house’s history, and a blow-by-blow account of the works done during his 2020-2022 tenure off Roman Street as a sort of handover manual.

'View of Cork from Audley Place' by John Butts.

He reckons his achievement will be to leave a house “robust and safe and healthy for many more years to come.” He feels it could be as old as 200 or even 300 years, going on old street maps and paintings such as the famed John Butt’s c 1750s ‘View of Cork from Audley Place’, a copy of which hangs over his stove and fireplace hearth, and with the original down the hill in the Crawford Art Gallery.

Faith kept with original build materials

“I wanted to ensure the longevity of the house and its structural components with the humble hope that the house can last another 300 years or more. Ultimately though, a healthy house also creates a healthy indoor climate for the inhabitants,” he outlines in the written introduction to the house book.

He’s given the sale of the cosy, one-bed (with mezzanine) No 4 to estate agent Timothy Sullivan, who guides the 50 sq m/535 sq ft mid-terrace home on the typically narrow, old inner suburban residential lane at €170,000, and says it’s great for a single person, or a couple, even though at one stage several owners back it accommodated a family with six or seven children……...

The Price Register doesn’t show what No 4 sold for back in 2020, but it does record the sale of Nos 1, 2 and 3 Courtney’s Avenue (previously Courtney’s Lane) at price from €42,000 for No 2 back in 2012, to No 1 in 2020 when it made €145,000.

No 4 has been reworked from top to toe, from a radon barrier under an insulated floor to its reslated roof and retained old beams, with gas central heating/combi boiler and stove, new bathroom and kitche made in minimal, rustic style in on-trend plywood and pallet timbers.

He says he met “beautiful people in Cork, West Cork and around Ireland,” and listened to design advice from his then-girlfriend Sinead and other women friends, and thanks friends Jed and Jairo, as well as his family for support, and especially name-checks craftsmen Dan Cronin and Rory McCarthy for more specialist work on his home.

VERDICT:  Probably the Best Small Home on the doorstep of Carlsberg's local rival, Heineken Brewery.