Graze Anatomy? Cork medic's €1.55m suburban house held hopes of a horse or pony

Big spenders sought for €1.55m Smallacre in Bishopstown, a sure-fired seller due to huge gardens

Big grounds at Bishopstown 's Smallacre

Bishopstown Avenue, Model Farm Road, Cork City
€1.55m
Size	242 sq m (2,590 sq ft)
Bedrooms	4/5
Bathrooms	3
BER	D1

YOU’D think that moving to live at Smallacre would be no hardship at all to a child, especially with the lure of large gardens...?

Yet, one of the four Hall family children had to be bribed with the promise of a horse or a pony if she consented to the move.

Impressive Smallacre has great gardens

That was back in the mid-1980s, around the time when medical academic and West Cork native Dr John Hall was made Professor of physiology in University College Cork (UCC), and he and his wife Mary decided to move from Dunville Crescent, on the outer fringes of Bishopstown, closer to the city, to the UCC campus and Cork University Hospital (CUH).

Rear view with sun room

They got the chance to buy this home, with the charming name Smallacre, on Bishopstown Avenue. Then, not only did they get the chance to buy it, on its excellent gardens with two access points, they also got offered the chance to buy a large garden section of a neighbouring home, Dún Pádraig, bringing the total grounds of this detached suburban home to a very unusual half an acre — nearly enough space, indeed for a pony.

“It was a bribe, but I never got a horse,” laughs the now-adult Julie Hall recalling her youthful reluctance to move from Dunville Crescent when she was aged about 11.

She got over the disappointment, though, and was one of the four fortunate Hall siblings who got to grow up with the extensive gardens at this “new” family home, with a free-ranging childhood that saw the house next door become almost a home from home for Julie, sister Lisa, and brothers James and John, such was the great relationship between the Hall family and the O’Briens next door.

Not so small Smallacre

open gap or two in the mature hedges remain today, testament to the ease with which the Hall and O’Brien neighbours crossed over, even exchanging meals and treats, fast friends over generations and decades.

But, that link is now just the fondest of memories, as Smallacre with its great big gardens and room to roam comes to market, hot on the heels of the sale of the home right next door, Dún Pádraig, which featured here with a €1.25m AMV last October and is now sold, understood to have made €1.25m.

Dun Padraig next door on Bishopstown Avenue made €1.25m via Casey & Kingston

The 2,050 sq ft Dún Pádraig dated to 1935, and was built on a 0.3-acre site by a Patrick O’Brien and his wife Marie (nee Constant, from Armenia) after they met while working in Baghdad.

They’d used a building contractor for their own home, but later tackled house building themselves, in the end producing a number of quality family homes along Bishopstown Avenue, and into the Ridgeway, between the late 1930s up to the 1960s, with a number of O’Brien family members getting two houses here as was recalled in the October editorial “one to live in and one to live off”. An O’Brien family member was the original owner of Smallacre, which the Hall family subsequently ended up buying around 1986.

Smallacre's approach with balcony off a bedroom

Smallacre dates to 1943, and was well-built then, and has been well tended ever since, with distinctly high ceilings as a particular feature at both levels; the garden was extended to 0.55 of an acre all-in in 1997, and a sunroom was added on in 2009 with a ground-floor bedroom and large bathroom also provided at that time, and with drains replaced.

It comes to market this month with agents Ann O’Mahony and Johnny O’Flynn of Sherry FitzGerald, with a guide price of €1.55m, and is going to be an interesting sale to track, particularly given the bonus of the extra hidden back garden section, big enough for a tennis court, pitch for fun and games, garden room and hideaway or, possibly as a site for a further dwelling off in the future.

Drawing room

Easing the way for some enhanced usage of this good rectangle of extra garden is the fact it can be accessed from Smallacre’s second entrance, kept from day one in the 1940s, on the Ridgeway.

It’s a bonus, for sure, but it’s not being overly pushed by Sherry FitzGerald, with Johnny O’Flynn merely noting “there is a potential site (subject to planning) while still retaining ample gardens and privacy to the main residence”. As it stands, west-facing Smallacre’s plot is very private, set as it is back from the line of neighbouring homes so that there’s an extra large front garden with rockery and mature trees and shrubs, along with a patio and detached garage between it and the neighbouring home at the junction with The Ridgeway.

Excellent internal condition

As well as that, inside and outside, it’s all quite spotless, and quite sizeable at c 2,590 sq ft over its two tall levels, with up to four reception rooms and a good flow around the ground floor, with four first-floor bedrooms — one of which has access to a balcony over the entry porch.

All four bedrooms are doubles, with picture rails, one (the largest) has a west-facing bay window, another is double aspect and all have built-ins.

Making the home very adaptable for all ages and family configurations is the large ground-floor bedroom with lovely garden view, and adjacent large wet room with shower, with access to a utility and the kitchen with cream units.

Smallacre's extra garden plot has site potential, subject to planning permission

Large reception rooms lie on either side of the central wide hall with understairs storage, each room has its original marble fireplace in mahogany surround, picture rails and ceiling roses, and the one on the left has double doors, glazed to the double aspect rear family room/bedroom five.

Next occupants can adapt or reconfigure slightly if they wish or just use as-is, and if buyers are reluctant to tackle any building works given the uncertainties and costs in the market right now, well, the good news is that a move could entail no more than decor changes to suit, and it’s already done in neutral shades, pretty much throughout.

Front garden: house was set back from the road for privacy

Laid out now with landscaped lawns, flowering trees, mature shrubs and hedging and morning patio area, there is so much more scope for extension, separate garden rooms or productive growing areas, while there’s always that future site prospect or value when today’s buyer might trade down in decades to come?

The sale of Smallacre comes about following the passing of Mary Hall (nee Shiely, and also a Caheragh, West Cork native), and as retired Professor John Hall is about to uproot to England, to be close to daughter Julie, who is a consultant neuroradiologist with the NHS in Newcastle, and to be near grandchildren.

Three of John and Mary Hall’s four children ended up working in the broad medical sphere (none in Ireland) and one son is in the banking sector in Dublin.

Having grown up within a walk of third-level institutions, medical centres (the back door of the CUH campus is 500m away), and sports facilities and schools, all will miss Smallacre, and especially the Halls grandchildren who took to garden adventures, tree climbing, and outdoor disporting as their parents had done before them. Whether the next occupants need the promise of a pony or a horse is, for now, an open question.

VERDICT: Graze Anatomy, Bishopstown style.