If the walls of €450k Old Stone Barn could only talk, they'd have soapy tales to tell

West Cork 19th century stone house with 'romantic' past has had two major investments to bring it bang up to date

Old Stone Barn at Kilnagospagh was brought back from a ruinous state in the 1990s, and was upended again in the last decade, says Skibbereen selling agent Pat Maguire

Thu, 01 Sep, 2022 - 17:00

Property Editor Tommy Barker reports

Skibbereen, West Cork
€450,000
Size	14 sq m 91,500 sq ft)
Bedrooms	4
Bathrooms	3
BER	C2

THE Old Stone Barn wears its heart on its sleeve: there’s no mistaking the fact it’s made of stone, as sections of its walls are stripped back, inside and outside, contrasting with white plaster, to show just how original and careful its creation was, day one.

Stripped back: some internal plaster is removed to show house's bare bones

Since first built a century and a half ago, this house with conjoined former barn has gone through quite a number of changes.

In fact, it’s quite recently had another, second overhaul and a décor upgrade, and a general ‘calming down’ from how it presented a number of years back.

Set out at Kilnagospagh, four miles from Skibbereen, The Old Stone Barn featured in these pages before, 20 years ago after it had been turned into a weekend ‘love nest’ by an enterprising couple, Peter and Anna Warburton.

Bare bones: The Old Stone Barn in 2003, before subsequent owners' landscaping paid dividends

In the late 1990s and early 2000s, the Warburtons did a series of old stone house renewals in West Cork, many of them - like this one at the time - brought back from ruinous states.

The Old Stone Barn had in fact been the couple’s first Irish renovation project, brought back from dereliction around 1994 in an 18-month project.

At the time they also owned the period era Georgian B&B Grove House, near Skibbereen, and over the next decade, they added ten or more West Cork traditional farmhouses and cottage refurbs to their rental portfolio.

They had a website ‘cottagesforcouples,’ and the online site’s ‘romance tending toward the raunchy’ theme was unashamed: rose petals strewn on beds, bottles of bubbly to hand, mood lighting and jacuzzi baths and/or double showers in the bedrooms.

Never was a dirty weekend away so sluiced with soapy bathing options.

Spruced up, it came for sale in September 2002 with a €500,000 AMV, our records show, and by 2003 that was cut back to an asking of €395,000, with a change of selling agents.

What it finally sold for is in unrecorded, pre-Price Register days.

That was then. This is now.

Interior, showing triple aspect main living room with stove

Selling it now, after its not one but two considerable renovations, is auctioneer Pat Maguire: he guides at €450,000 (roughly halfway between the 2002-2003 levels) and it has received immediate inquiries for viewings.

Back in 2002, when the Old Stone Barn got its first splash here, it had its wetroom/bedrooms downstairs and its living quarters up above.

Old Stone Barn had a first floor living area in the 2000s, bedrooms have since been reinstated upstairs

It’s now all less frenetic, calmer, more family-friendly.

The current owners reversed it back to a traditional layout, putting several of bedrooms upstairs and cut back on the plumbing options… handily enough, given the current drought and hose-pipe bans which came into force in West Cork this week, though at the time the multi-jacuzzi home was serviced by a 122m-deep bore well on site.

Now, the well’s more likely to be used for watering the garden, as the occupants of many years have been into veg growing and all things green, on their immaculate c 0.8 of an acre of grounds with glasshouse, while the space out the front which once hosted an outdoor hot-tub under an awning is now a slate-roofed sun-room, with wood-clad lower section.

They also put in a very large lock-up steel shed (10 metres by 6m) by the approach section, and made full use of their home in the interim, jobs all done, and are now returning to family in the UK.

Despite the preponderance of exposed and thus uninsulated (at least in section) stone, The Old Stone Barn gets a pretty decent C2 BER, has a stove in a triple aspect living room, and a modern kitchen, opening to the sun room, with link corridor by the house and attached, former barn section, with quality, more restrained bathrooms, wainscoting on walls, some painted exposed roof beams and, yes, lots of exposed stone.

VERDICT: Old Stone Barn has been brought back from the grave, has been turned upside down and inside out. If the stone walls could talk, it could be a soap opera?