A coastal dormer for €1.65m designed by a US-based architect who's never been to Ireland

Sandycove setting for stone-faced Pau Hana, a B3-rated 20-year old home that looks traditional but was ahead of its time....like its American owners

Sat, 29 Oct, 2022 - 20:58

Property Editor Tommy Barker reports. Pictures Ray at H-pix.ie

Sandycove, Kinsale
€1.65 million
Size	371 sq m (4,000 sq ft)
Bedrooms	4 +1
Bathrooms	4 +1
BER	B3

LOOKING 100% at home and fully Irish in its seaside setting by Kinsale’s Sandycove is Pau Hana — a stone-built home designed remotely in the US, called after the Hawaiian expression “pau hana”, meaning to relax after work.

Buildings all faced in Coolmain Bay stone

It was designed and built 20 years ago by a couple from America who’d lived and worked in various places around the world — including in Hawaii — as a sort of retirement home when they fell for Kinsale after a month-long home hunting tour of the country. (He has Kerry roots, hers are English, and they first came in 1972), and they were early adapters to the possibility of remote working.

In fact, one of the couple is an early adapter in just about every way, having become involved in the very earliest days of computers, in Princeton’s Institute for Advanced Study in 1953 as computer development and advanced mathematics moved from seminal military use in the Second World War and the hydrogen bomb to wider, and now utterly widespread applications.

He was then aged 18, and embraced science, engineering, computing, and software development: he and his wife who worked in education also stayed ahead of the curve when it came to designing and building their Irish home, Pau Hana in the early 2000s.

Vaulted ceilings in double height main living area with mezzanine

Evidence is in things like the B2 BER, geothermal heating and highly effective underfloor heating radiating comfort even in lofty, double-height spaces, and its near self-sufficiency, with permission recently granted for banks of PV panels to generate surplus electricity, enough to sell back to the grid.

Clever design is also there in things like the way each door to the outside has been doubled up with an inner and outer door, to cut heat loss, ban draughts, and deter howling winds from the Atlantic, less than a kilometre away, over a few farm fields. It’s also there in the choice of heat reflective paint on interior walls, adding to thermal insulation and overall comfort.

They learned home comforts from wide experience, from the heat in Hawaii and southern California to the chilling winter cold in the US mid-west and say their home state of Minnesota can get snow in 11 months of the year: Kinsale was always going to be benign, by comparison ( just in case, they have a 63-amp generator should there be a power cut or other energy hiccups).

After they came across this house site on a farm at a headland spot called Courtaparteen, just west of Sandycove with a stunningly scenic old church ruin on a coastal bluff overlooking Sandycove Island and the Sovereign rocks, they engaged an architect whose work they admired site “back home” to design a home here for them.

The US-based architect, Bill Michel, got it so right after extensive research on Irish vernacular design — including its siting in a sensitive seaside setting, its scale, finish materials and the way the rooms capture the best of the coastal views. That’s impressive enough, but what’s even more extraordinary, is that the architect never visited the site, never came to Ireland to see his handiwork... and he still hasn’t.

Now that it’s up for sale, maybe this is his chance to travel, or to at least review it online as it gets a push on the web; auctioneer Michael O’Donovan of Savills, Cork, guides the sympathetic cluster on 1.2 landscaped acres at €1.65m as his vendors prepare to relocate back to the US having loved their almost two decades this side of the Atlantic.

The couple says Bill Michel amassed a small library of literature on Irish design, visited them at their then-home in the US and later presented them with the design exactly as the house subsequently turned out. “We didn’t change a single thing,” they remark on what seems to have been an entirely happy partnership.

Pau Hana's stone work is exemplary, done by local man Donal McCarthy

Helping to get the drawings through to reality was Cork engineer Mike Walsh of Walsh Design, and another happy link up was finding Ballinspittle/Kilbrittain stonemason Donal McCarthy to dress their 4,000 sq ft dormer-style home in Coolmain Bay stone, along with a detached double garage and a one-bed guest cottage (left), all in the same quality stonework.

The look and texture is just exemplary, appearing drystone with minimal pointing, and with unusual fascia projections at the eaves, in twin-stone slabs: There’s nearly a touch of the Cotswolds about this otherwise all-local delivery and top-quality build.

Airy and open plan at its core, with Chinese stone flooring set into oak grids on the floor, with heating underneath

Roofs are all natural slate, neat fascias and soffits are in hardwoods, and windows are double-glazed and well maintained from Rationel, while timbers also feature heavily internally. Lots of the furniture is classic US Stickley-style arts and crafts.

Floors are in earth tones, Chinese stone set into one-metre grids all framed with varnished oak, in virtually all ground floor rooms for continuity of look, and heating is delivered underfloor via ground source geothermal heating (air to water in the one-bed cottage) and the chef-designed kitchen has units in oak, under black granite tops and with a deep, black stone sink.

Cast-iron pots and pans hang over kitchen island with electric Aga in the background

A sturdy rack hangs over the kitchen holding more (orange) Le Creuset pots and pans than you’d see in a Brown Thomas catalogue. More of the even bulkier dishes — big enough to casserole a Thanksgiving turkey — are out in the garage as packing-up time comes around. It’s all set up for serious cooking, with pull-out Sub-Zero drawer fridges; integrated Miele appliances including a coffee maker; an Aga range converted to electricity, Quooker taps and apart from the range of units in oak, there’s also an open-shelf pantry to the side for easy storage and retrieval of ingredients.

Separately, there’s a large utility/laundry, masses of storage cupboards on both levels, there’s a Beam central vacuum with motor out in the detached garage (where there are also back-up appliances and the 63-amp generator) and the main living area/house core is airy, with 20 ft-high ceilings, cosily warm, where an enormous stone chimney breast hosts a large Charnwood stove.

There’s visual interest (apart from the ocean and coastline views) from hanging stained-glass panels and lots of Tiffany-coloured glass lamps and light shades.

A mezzanine links the two first floor wings, with a large bedroom on one side up here and with a huge office set up for three or four work stations by dormer windows, but easily converted back to two bedrooms with architect’s drawings done up to this end.

At ground level, the layout is good for owners and families of all ages, with two en suite ground-floor bedrooms on the western side and one very large main bedroom at the other, with dressing room and en suite bathroom where the piece de resistance is a tall, step-up, step-down and then sit-down Japanese-style bath with huge capacity (just as well the water supply is from a private well here, in case water charges even comeback into play the site)

Deep Japanse style bath in main bedroom suite

Notably, tiling standards are high with even the ceiling sections above the walk-in showers also tiled.

The vendors’ favourite room is the octagonal sunroom (with windvane on top) which they added on at a corner for the very best sweep of sea views, in two directions over the headland and tillage fields at Courtaparteen, added after planning was granted on a subsequent application, and also latterly approved is a raised link to be put between the main house and double garage for carrying PV panels — energy self-sufficiency being the new must-have goal.

Pau Hana is on 1.2 acres, with easy parking and turning between the house, a double garage and the one-bed cottage with its lovely mature wisteria twisting around by the entrance door. There is also equally happy looking planting and landscaping in the larger picture which was overseen by a family friend, Elizabeth Kavanagh, who wisely chose plants able to withstand wind and salt given the coastline’s proximity.

Wildflower meadow on part of the 1.2 acre site

About half of the site is left a wildflower meadow, with second/separate access from a small country cul de sac boreen leading down to the old Courtaparteen graveyard and church ruin by the water’s edge, overlooking reefs of rock, and over towards the mouth of the entrance to Sandycove with Sovereign rocks by Oysterhaven further off. This could in time provide space for another structure, or perhaps a stable.

Location is to the west of pretty Sandycove, about four miles from Kinsale town centre, and the road from Sandycove can lead on out towards Ballinspittle and the Old Head of Kinsale, a magnet for some of the world’s richest golf-playing types. Kinsale is also attractive for sailors and diners, with Cork Airport a c a half an hour’s commute from Courtaparteen.

Not quite Hawaii.....Courtaparteen cemetery near Sandycove and Pau Hana

The Price Register shows just two of Kinsale’s many, many €1m+ sales with a Sandycove address to date, one in 2020 at €1.175m, and the most recent, a contemporary design called Avalon quite close to Pau Hana at €2.35m earlier this year after a period on the market.

There’s still a pent-up demand for coastal property post-pandemic, with Kinsale getting the cream of sales of late (sales at €4.8m and even €5.5m this year alone), with the “halo” effect spreading east as far as Nohoval, with a multi-million euro sale there currently transacting, so the omens look good for the pristine Pau Hana.

VERDICT: The fact the architect did this remotely from midwest US, never visiting it, and it fits better into its Irish setting than the vast bulk of dormer home is some achievement.