Box clever at €695k Cleve Hill Blackrock detached buy

You're welcome? Detached De Nada is on a good site beside Botanika

Sun, 12 Jun, 2022 - 20:11

Property Editor Tommy Barker reports

Blackrock Road, Cork City
€695,0000
Size	210 sq m (2,155 sq ft)
Bedrooms	4
Bathrooms	2
BER	G

THIS suburban Cork city home may be called De Nada, as in the Spanish expression for ‘you’re welcome,’ but its best welcome is still a bit reserved, for the day when it gets a deserving and possibly overdue makeover.

The quite intriguing name is attached to this detached, older-era family home in the Cleve Hill estate, off the city end of the main Blackrock Road — close enough to walk into and out of town for work, leisure, or pleasure.

Cleve Hill’s a scheme of over a dozen homes on and just off the main road, between Ashton and Lindville, and had homes designed by acclaimed modernist /early 20th century Cork architect Frank Murphy, whose family owned a number for many years.

Most have now sold out of Murphy clan hands, and some of the same clan members also benefited from a €10.7m sale of a few acres of undeveloped land along Cleve Hill’s northern boundary in the mid-2000s to Howard Holdings.

After Howard Holdings’ demise post-crash, the land was sold again and eventually developed by Citidwell Homes for the 31-units scheme called Botankia.

Botanika sold out swiftly also, about five years back, with top prices paid at the time via agents Cohalan Downing hitting the mid €800ks for good-size detacheds, on quite compact sites: the most recent resale was on No 10 Botanika, making €840,000.

Now, Botanika’s original selling agents are handling the sale of the older, and colder, and more rooted De Nada, a G-BER rated original.

It looks different to most of its similar era Cleve Hill neighbours though, most of them semi-detached, and may have post-dated the Frank Murphy architect originals. Yet, some of the internal features are redolent of Murphy’s other builds here, and the house next door is different again, likely to date to the 1980s or even later, so it’s clearly a niche spot that has evolved over decades.

The last resale here was of No 4 Cleve Hill, making €550,000 in 2021: it was in excellent order. No 1 Cleve Hill, also called Fenway and set round from the estate entrance on the main Blackrock Road, sold too in ’21, at a recorded €532,000.

In addition to De Nada’s detached status/appeal, there’s a good-sized site with it, with clear scope to build on, on either side and/or to the back, subject to planning.

Even though it’s already a good 2,100 sq ft +, most intending purchasers will want to add more than the 40 sq m they’ll be allowed to add on the back without planning permission.

So, it’s likely another generation of architects will get the chance to make a mark on the 1960s-looking De Nada, which bears more than a passing resemblance to houses in the nearby Richmond Estate across the Blackrock Road.

Auctioneer Brian Olden of Cohalan Downing guides De Nada at €695,000 and observes it has gardens “to the front, side and rear offering any discerning purchaser unlimited potential for refurbishment and extension. This much-loved family home is laid out over two floors with excellent living accommodation complemented by good-sized bedrooms. The entire has a bright and airy atmosphere helped by its south facing rear garden.”

Features include a parquet floored hall with open tread stairs with wrought iron rails, there’s a reception room to the left with a central fireplace, another reception to the right opening to an old glasshouse/lean-to conservatory/sun room on the western gable, a dining room, kitchen with new units, plus utility and guest WC.

Above are four bedrooms (none of them particularly large), one with robes/dressing area under a sloping roof section and two have older ear en suites.

VERDICT: De Nada, indeed. Location alone will help this house sell, that and its grounds and southerly rear aspect. Expect it to be a very different welcoming home in a few more years.