Pretty in pink: Classic bungalow with stunning views over Cork

Gorgeous home evokes 1960s California, but is all about the Lee Valley rather than Los Angeles

Pretty in pink: Shournagh Lodge is a beautifully-rendered and well-maintained modernist bungalow on a chunk of land in one of Cork City's greenest oases.

Temple Hill, Carrigrohane, Cork

€695,000
Size: 161 sq m (1,733 sq ft)
Bedrooms: 4
Bathrooms: 3
BER: E1

When a property appears back on the market with a change of selling agent, it’s usually accompanied by a price drop, to rekindle interest and activity.

That’s not the case in the proposed sale of the strikingly 1960s-looking bungalow home called Shournagh Lodge: it has incredible vistas over Cork City’s western suburbs and the River Lee as it reaches the Lee Fields past County Hall, and new, high-rise student apartments at the old Crow’s Nest site at Victoria Cross.

Shournagh Lodge is no doer-upper: The beautiful home on the west side of Cork City is ready to walk into with all modern conveniences and plenty of stylish details inside. 

Here, beyond suburbia and the hubbub, this c 1,733 sq ft home (named after a river Lee tributary, the Shournagh) is for sale with an unchanged €695,000 AMV quoted for the pretty special one-off, painted a pale pink, and pretty.

The difference this time is that it can be bought for the same sum, on twice as much ground, about five acres, instead of the 2.4 acres it was floated on eight months ago, as autumn and winter hoved to.

The selling agent now, coming into brighter and lengthening days and a change of colour and focus in the grounds is Norma Healy of Sherry FitzGerald, who describes the ‘modernist’ 1960s home with appropriate features as ‘Old Hollywood style’: it’s not a bad descriptor, even if the views are more Lee than LA, and more towards Hollyhill and Apple’s HQ hinterland (with c 5,000 jobs, and some attractive executive perks) than Hollywood.

It’s a pure Cork panorama and includes — lest there be any doubt — the silhouette of Carrigrohane Castle a kilometre away to the south, past the enormously reinvigorated Anglers Rest bar and restaurant, within a steep downhill slalom on the view-protected Temple Hill.

Shournagh Lodge on Temple Hill is just outside the hubbub of Cork City — but it offers some beautiful vistas up and down the Lee Valley. 

It’s an executor sale, with the family half reluctant to see it go, which might explain why they had hoped to hold on to some of the acres of land this property stands on when putting it up for sale last September. Now, the full five acres is going with this former four-bed family home, which last changed hands in the 1970s.

It’s laid out in two sloping paddocks forming the initial part of the views which not only stretch to the city and south and western suburb but, also, to the north. It even has views over the topography toward the Galtee mountains in Tipperary which, as anyone with a note in their head knows, is a long, long way to go.

Whoever buys Shournagh Lodge can have a long way, or a short way, further to go, depending on their ultimate ambitions for the single-storey, rangy property.

It’s got lots of quality touches inside, and a sensible layout with three reception rooms, on split/internal half levels, having sun-basking and south-facing views through picture windows, while the kitchen also has great views over a paddock with two stables towards the east.

Shournagh Lodge is worth a look for details such as this beautifully-appointed courtyard but, for many, its location on the western edge of Cork City centre will be the clincher. 

One of the four bedrooms is en suite; there’s a pretty and sheltered internal courtyard, with mature wisteria and Liscannor stone-flagged floors for a Mediterranean air; there’s also a utility room, boiler room, and internal access to a large, double garage, perfect for a hobbyist, owner of classic cars, or a family with teens into rock’n’roll, or a drummer mum or dad. If they’re into pets, there’s space aplenty, and a couple of old stables and paddocks with grazing for horses.

Shournagh Lodge Temple Hill Carrigrohane Cork

Set near the crown of Temple Hill, with just a handful of other homes along its steep climb, it’s located within a short spin (or a healthy walk) of the start of the city’s built-up areas, but is an aloof, aloft world away from them in just about every other sense, whilst also close by are
Ballincollig and Blarney.

VERDICT: Acres of space, and a house already with some architectural aplomb to work with. Subject to planning consents (which will be strict and quality driven) perhaps add a second storey, part or full? Glass box annex? Something more radical?