Waterford whopper with tennis court and stables is a €1.35m boomtime build
Knock House, Waterford
|
Kiloterran, Co Waterford |
|
|---|---|
|
€1.35m |
|
|
Size |
864 sq m (9,300 sq ft) |
|
Bedrooms |
6 |
|
Bathrooms |
6 |
|
BER |
B3 |
THE origins of this supersize home go back to boomtime, when thinking big was how we all rolled.
If you were in the construction industry, you were better positioned than most to build that jumbo home.
With five children, the land to build on, and the skills to oversee it himself, that’s exactly what the owner of this Waterford property did. He built a sprawling 9,300 sq ft family home, with the sort of extras that kids dream of, like a full-size, flood-lit tennis court, stables, paddocks to canter about, gardens to play hide-and-seek in and enough room to have half the school stay over.
It was, he says, a terrific family home, albeit on a scale and with the kind of facilities that you’d be inclined to think would work well too as a guest house or, given the level of development earmarked for the area, a corporate HQ, as the likes of global biopharma giant, Horizon Therapeutics, progress their plans to build a biotech campus – potential investment of upto €1bn - nearby.
Plans are progressing too to extend the runway at Waterford Airport to accommodate large commercial aircraft (the airport is 10 minutes by car), while part of the newly created South East Technological University – drawing students/start-ups/further investment – is a few minutes down the road. In Waterford City, a 10 minute drive away, a planned €170m investment, which will transform transport in the city, has been earmarked for the North Quay.
If all of this sounds very industrial/commercial, rest assured, Knock House is in an idyllic setting, at the top of a meandering/ electric-gated driveway, close to the Cork Road, the River Suir and Waterford Greenway, where expansion is planned too, onto New Ross, in Co Wexford, and eventually, to Youghal in East Cork.
It’s also near Mount Congreve House and Gardens, which has undergone a €7m redevelopment, and which recently opened to visitors. It’s the largest investment in a visitor attraction in Waterford, in what is lauded as a “great garden of the world”.
Knock House has it’s own lovely gardens and great views and you can see a couple of counties from the house – including Wexford, and Tipperary, where the snow-covered summit of the Comeragh Mountains was visible in the distance, on the day the Irish Examiner visited.
The best place to take in those views is from the second-floor balcony of Knock House, which juts out in a semi-circle of tumbled marble above the rather grand entrance.
The balcony and the giant columns that frame it create the impression of a plantation-style house. This continues indoors to the grande dame of staircases (handmade by Andy Kelly is his workshop) where two parallel flights head upwards from the first return to the main landing.
Three floor-to-ceiling Georgian-style windows at the stairs’ return ensure a light-filled hallway.
From the main landing, you can look straight down into the hallway, through a large circular opening, surrounded by banisters.
At the far end of the landing are double doors to that expensive balcony. It’s all quite hotel-like and you’d have to think it’s a great house for entertaining.
The owner confirms that this was the case (21st birthdays, 25th wedding anniversary celebrations etc), with room outback for dozens of cars and room inside for dozens of people, with easy movement through big reception rooms.
The main reception room is like three rooms rolled into one, with half a dozen single windows, as well as a large bay.
There’s a smaller family room up three steps across the hall, as well as a dining room and a large kitchen where the breakfast counter can fit six comfortably.
The backstairs off the kitchen leads to the top floor, which isn’t fully finished out, as the family had more than enough room on the other floors, but it can be easily completed, the owner says.
A sunroom off the kitchen has a vaulted ceiling and a stove and gets sun all day.
There’s a deck off one side, overlooking a children’s playground, with special playing surface to prevent injuries, and a balcony at the other end overlooks the tennis court.
The stables, four, big enough for mare and foal, are out back, in pristine condition, and there’s a two-storey garage and workshop, with an overhead gym, used by rugby-playing teens.
Back in the main house, bedrooms and bathrooms number six apiece and there are guest WCs at both basement and ground floor levels.
The basement floor measures about 900 sq ft, and has its own entrance.
The kids used it as a pool room, but it could be converted into an apartment or a clinic for someone who wanted to work from home. It even comes with a fine home office and separate storage.
On the first floor, bedrooms, all doubles, are off a long corridor, which culminates in a large bedroom suite at one end, with ensuite and walk-in wardrobe and even a nursery.
The site Knock House is on is seven acres and includes landscaped gardens, with a fountain out front.
The owner had the land for many years before deciding to build on it.
“We were living closer to town and I’d be back and forth, as we kept horses, and there were guys doing market gardening. The kids would be out here a lot during the summer so we decided to move out here in the end. We started building in 1999 and finished it in 2000,” he says.
Local architect John Santry designed Knock House and the builder/owner oversaw the project. He can tell you that 65,000 blocks went into it and another 30,000 into the peripheral walls. Basement, ground and first floor are all concrete floors with underfloor oil heating throughout (heating is zoned). Insulation is good - 75mm thick between the walls - and the BER is a B3, not bad for a 9,300 sq ft house. High grade Pilkington K Glass double-glazed windows were installed, “as good as triple glazing” says the owner.
He thought about converting the stables after his kids left the nest and had a sketch done up to turn them into four townhouses (there is scope to create a separate access point from the main road). In the end, he didn’t go ahead with it, but it’s something a new owner might consider, if they wanted to turn Knock House into a retreat of sorts.
The scale of Knock House and grounds creates lots of options. It’s down the road from a private hospital (extension of services?); it’s just 10 minutes from Waterford City centre; it’s near a third-level campus, it’s close to the Waterford Greenway. Tramore Beach is about 20 minutes by car, Dunmore East is slightly further. Cork is less than an hour and a half away. Schools are a 15 minute drive, including Waterpark for boys and Newtown for girls.
The agent selling Knock House is Johanna Murphy of Johanna Murphy & Sons and she says it “lends itself to many uses”: impressive family home; conversion into offices, or use as a clinic or a guest house.
“And because of the stables, it could also be a horse-riding school,” she says.
Ms Murphy is guiding at €1.4m, which represents a price drop (down from €1.575) following a change of agent.
The sheer scale of Knock House leaves it open to a variety of uses, from jumbo home to corporate HQ, to some form of health clinic or retreat. It's location is good vis-a-vis decent road networks.
CONNECT WITH US TODAY
Be the first to know the latest news and updates
