Ring of Kerry Dooks seaside home one of Kerry's dearest at €1.35m

Top quality A2 rated Buncar House is just two years old and is one of Kerry's dearest private homes on the market

Sun, 07 Aug, 2022 - 11:02

Property Editor Tommy Barker reports Pictures Niall Foley

Dooks, Ring of Kerry
€1.35 million
Size	305 sq m (3,250 sq ft)
Bedrooms	4
Bathrooms	4
BER	A2

Hands up who know where Co Kerry’s Dooks is?

Are?!

It’s likely most folk who’ll have instant name recognition of Dooks will be golfers, given the links course of that name here since the 19th century.

The approach to the first green at Dooks Golf Club near Glenbeigh in Co Kerry

Others may be families who’ll rate the safe and fairly sheltered sandy beach, near a spit of land that goes halfway out into Dingle Bay, facing another long sandy spit from Inch, reached between Glenbeigh and Killorglin.

Buncar House, Dooks is fresh to market, and only recently built

And if you’re not into beaches or golf, you might just know the Dooks area because it’s “just” a beauty spot on the north shores of the Ring of Kerry, with sea and mountain views, and with the Reeks inland, to its back, and Glencar lake and river for anglers tucked away in the folds also.

This is an area estate agent Pat Falvey might know well too. His father, also Pat, is an acclaimed mountain climber (the Seven Summits, no less) and an Everest veteran who’d have cut his teeth here on the MacGillicuddy Reeks decades back.

Lisney’s Pat Falvey himself will possibly know the area from fishing — he competed for Ireland in the World Angling Championships in South Africa a few years back (coarse fishing) — and so will be hoping to lure and to land a big catch here at Dooks.

He guides this property, Buncar House, at €1.35m, for an unidentified vendor understood to have long Co Kerry links and a decades-long background in the Irish property development and hospitality businesses.

Architect-designed Buncar House is among a small handful of homes currently on the Co Kerry residential market priced in excess of €1m. It’s in quite elite, exclusive, and exalted company.

Built only in quite recent times, finished in the run-up to 2020 and pandemic times, the A2-rated detached home is on four acres, just a field away from the shoreline and beach with its very own pond, and is fresh to market with Mr Falvey, of the recently formed entity Lisney Sotheby’s International Realty — the Sotheby’s name might well work well in this sale’s case?

It hit the market just the Friday of the August bank holiday weekend as Kerry’s holiday season was finally back in full swing.

The selling agent expects quite a broad range of interest, from overseas and nationally, reckoning the work-from-home shift of the last two years is really a trump card for a property like this, either for second-home or more permanent use. Its first viewings were swiftly booked for this week, from an interested party based in Dublin.

The architects were Dublin-based Cantrell & Crowley, a 20-year-old practice with a wide cross-section of output, from commercial and hospitality (including recent work on the iconic Shelbourne Hotel in Dublin) to residential and interiors, with particular strength and profile in Galway and Dublin.

Kerry doesn’t feature much on their portfolio list, and so far, Buncar House isn’t highlighted there yet either.

Naturally landscaped gardens, and paths mown in meadows

This one-off replaced an older dwelling on the site and four acres of ground, which is approached up a private-access avenue (electric gate access) with some mature trees, and with a separate, smaller house on the road near the entrance (property websites show another Dooks house, an older-style bungalow with tennis court, currently listed for sale with a €750,000 AMV).

The Property Price Register also shows two sales with a Buncar address: Buncar Gate Lodge at €325,000 earlier this year, and Buncar Cottage, fetching €225,000 also in 2022, and previously selling in 2014 for a recorded €220,000... So nothing in this price, or size, or quality league to benchmark off.

Today’s Buncar House is a calm-looking detached two-storey home, not frighteningly contemporary; traditional in outline and three-bays wide with simple window openings and chimneys up each end gable. But it is crisp and fresh nonetheless, with pressed metal trim over one of its front bay windows, and with another corner window in the entrance porch.

It’s block-built, in a sort of L-shape with a tall glazed side section with a ground-floor living area by the patio and overhead bedroom with a Ducon-slab floor at first-floor level.

There are concrete stairs too for absolute solid heft, sound-proofing, and fire resistance even, with a quite traditional lower section — stair spindles and mezzanine, and the second stairs above has a glass side baluster and dark, stained wood steps.

The hand of adroit interior design is evident throughout on all three internal levels, as well as in the connection to an outdoor barbecue section, with lots of attention to lighting, both suspended pendants and more dedicated task lighting for the art items liberally displayed.

Walls are graced by paintings, prints, abstract works and local landscapes by accomplished artists.

One pride-of-place piece is over the double doors in the hall to the living room, with a painting of a white crane taking flight. It looks to be pure Pauline Bewick (the Glenbeigh-based artist who died just last week, aged in her 80s) but while it is in fact a Bewick, it’s by her daughter Poppy, commissioned some time ago by this property’s owner for his private collection (pic, above).

Elsewhere, there are ceramics, and sculptures, inside and outside, adding to the house’s visual richness: Its next occupants will need to go on a knowing shopping spree to try and match it for quality and impact.

The 3,250 sq ft detached four-bed home is looking more than comfortable already on its acres of grounds, some recently landscaped with some feature limestone used, the rest quite unchanged from the way they were when the older house was here.

Now, though, there’s a small pond, and “rewilded” wildflower meadow scythed or cut through with paths, so is likely to be appreciated by birds, bees, and butterflies among the fauna, and most planting is of native species.

Accommodation for human inhabitants includes three en suite first-floor bedrooms, with very good-quality bathrooms — some bedecked with antique-style furniture, display, and storage — and they, and some of the other rooms, also house mid-20th-century furniture items and seating in an easy mix of old and new.

Then, there’s an optional fourth ground-floor bedroom, sharing a shower bathroom with a guest WC in a Jack & Jill set up. It is equally set up for home office use, just off the main living area. The top/second floor is also is adaptable for many uses, holding two dormer-style rooms, and a further bathroom.

But, be warned: one of the duo up here may not best serve as a home office, given the distractions of the views from a tall, vertical gable-end window (pic, above), overlooking sea and bay and Dingle peninsula.

Other rooms include an open-plan living room; double aspect with fireplace, and with double doors and pocket doors for linking to the dining room and kitchen.

There’s a second reception too, and the kitchen/diner is double aspect, with painted units, double doors to a patio and has a large range cooker.

Rooms have been positioned to get the best “postcard” views, says Mr Falvey, and windows are Velfac aluclad for optimum thermal performance, helping Buncar House to hit its A2 BER, with high insulation values. Heating is air to water, and there’s a heat recovery system for temperature balance, good filtered air quality for dust and pollen, and running costs should be reasonable, with a low carbon footprint, it’s claimed.

Apart from the main house, where finishes “set a tone of opulence and luxury” according to Lisney, there’s a detached garage, built so as to be able to be upgraded to extra living accommodation if and when needed, subject to planning permission.

On the doorstep is the beach at Dooks and, nearby, the links golf course. Glenbeigh is only a few minutes by car and both Killarney and Killorglin are within easy reach. Kerry Airport is a 30-minute drive and Cork Airport is 90 minutes in the car.

VERDICT: A high-end home offer in an acknowledged beauty spot, with numerous outdoor activities to hand, and the possibility of remote home working now adding to the appeal.