Snazzy interiors and groovy outdoor living space at €495,000 Passage home

No 1 Hillcrest is a home that has grown with the family

13, Hillcrest, Pembroke Wood, Passage West, Co Cork. Picture Denis Minihane.

Passage West, Cork Harbour
€495,000
Size	245 sq m (2,636 sq ft)
Bedrooms	5
Bathrooms	4
BER	B2

THIS ace home has tracked its owners’ family growth, life stages, their hands-on and visual skills and, lucky the family that gets it next.

Set near the top of the Pembroke Woods scheme on the entrance to Cork Harbour’s Passage West, the lofty home at 13 Hillcrest has swelled in size, has huge extra amenities inside and outside, but still has kept a sense of place — right down to the cows grazing over the back boundary. The owners even pitched their first, small, extension to gaze out over the fields while dining.

Then, they added on to the other side, going up a full three storeys. And now, a fully delivered entity, it’s up for sale, listed as a 2,630 sq ft five-bed home with a €495,000 AMW with estate agent Stephen Clarke of REA O’Donoghue Clarke.

He says it’s “a beautiful home, where nothing was spared on its design and appearance. The additional space given to this house has transformed it to an exceptional home, for any purchaser looking to move upmarket.”

But, to dial back a bit first: the owners moved to their first home in Passage West’s Pembroke Woods in 2000, a three-bed townhouse, perfect for a couple.

It served them well, and their first son was born there.

Three years later, they heard that larger detached homes, which were going to be four-bedroomed, were being built by the crest of the hill, at the back of their park “and from a family planning point of view and the fact that we loved the area this was a good move,” says one of the couple, who, handily, had trained as a cabinet-maker.

“We moved into Hillcrest on Christmas Eve 2004,” he recalls, just in time for Santa to visit.

Owner's cabinetry skills are a hit in the garden

He can get credit for much of the work done here since 2004, across two extensions, interior finishes, panelling, and outdoor additions such as decking, tiered gardens, and a clay pizza oven that he built as a family project with three now-teenage sons.

“My wife has an exceptional eye for the finishing touches such as fabrics and colours — so between the two of us we have added stylish character to every corner of our home,” he adds.

“Literally everything, bar the extensions’ construction, has been completed by ourselves.”

They’d bought as a young family and say the original houses were well laid out, but a little on the compact side, missing a utility room and a dining space, for example.

Thus, as the south-facing side of their home looks onto a large field of pasture, often grazed by cattle, their first project was to build a single-storey extension to this side of the house with the requisite dining area with a view, plus a utility room.

This was followed in 2008 with a far larger three-storey extension on the far side of the house, and this allowed for a top-floor main bedroom suite linking the original top floor with the attic space of the new build, which became a very large walk-in wardrobe/dressing room: Top marks for smarts.

The middle level is now home to four timber-floored bedrooms with built-ins, two sharing an en suite in a Jack and Jill (or Jack and Jacks) arrangement while the main family bathroom has a Jacuzzi bath.

At ground level are a snug/family TV room to the side with solid fuel stove (this was the first added-on dining spot), a larger, double-aspect living room with another stove, a newly refitted kitchen/diner by Celtic Interiors with quartz tops, timber breakfast bar, new appliances, and a large pantry/utility, plus guest WC off the hall, and ground-floor rooms with wood floors and painted panelling with assertive, moody colours and styled decor.

Apart from doubling up on the extensions on either side, the front is doubled up with two drives and mature landscaping, with decorative stained fencing, gate, and frames for climbers giving privacy to the front door. Behind, the private rear garden is not overlooked (except perhaps by nervous cattle eyeing up the barbecue area and small fire pit?) There’s also the domed wood-burning clay pizza oven, used most weekends, and the rear which originally had a slope up and away is now tiered with a mix of paving, planting, chipping, and decking and green views.

A ‘practical’ corner holds a garden shed, timber storage shed, and storage for bikes and, as of now, there’s a large quality hot tub. This “keeps us outdoors a lot, but may be coming with us,” say the moving-on vendors, ready to pull the plug on their fully-delivered dream home, if not on the tub itself, and moo-ving on.

VERDICT: Tall, tip-top, family home with an impressive B2 energy rating.