It might cost €4.75m, but Kinsale home might be Munster's loveliest property package

Sandycove Georgian residence on 40 acres has half a mile of shoreline at the Kinsale end of Ireland's magnificent Wild Atlantic Way

Fri, 05 May, 2023 - 14:08

Property Editor Tommy Barker reports

Sandycove, Kinsale
€4.75m
Size	311 sq m (3,350 sq ft)
Bedrooms	4 + 1
Bathrooms	3 + 1
BER	D1

IS Sprayfield the loveliest property mix to come to the Munster property market in quite some time?

Sprayfield's setting to the side of Sandycove, right on the ocean between Kinsale and the Old Head of Kinsale Golf Club

For the right buyer, for whom funds may not be the most pressing issue in the case of this €4.7million private treaty listing, it quite probably is.

The 250-year-old Georgian villa, on the coastal outskirts of Kinsale, is on 40 private acres with organic gardens, small woodland and half a mile of sea frontage, and comes with outbuildings, a tennis court, a wine cave, views as lovely at night as by day, stables and paddocks for ponies, horses and donkeys… and it is all beautiful, simple as.

Arch beauty and a view from the hall and front door

Lovely and all as it is, and valuable, its market value is guided and solidly underpinned by Location, Location, Location.

A few miles out from the madding crowds of Kinsale, it’s set off a quiet back road from picturesque Sandycove to the western approaches to Kinsale’s harbour mouth, while the same road then leads via a necklace of roads to on-trend Ballinspittle

Or, dipping south, it leads out to the Old Head of Kinsale, a noted beauty spot on the Wild Atlantic Way and home to the world-renowned Old Head of Kinsale Golf Course, where green fees can rise in high season (from now to October) to €395 per round.

But, if you can afford the €4.75m, give or take, for Sprayfield, you can presumably afford to play the odd round of golf at your rather exclusive “local” club, where helicopters are a regular way of arriving for many of its high net worth, well-shod aficionados.

Might some of its high-flying fans even drop in by chopper for a property viewing at Sprayfield? It’s entirely possible: Kinsale has the highest “hit” rate of multi-million euro sums being paid for the best “des-res” options, up to and over €5m in a number of cases of late. Sprayfield is up there with the very best of them, and better than many, thanks to its land and oceanside setting.

If not coming by helicopter, the covetousness begins as soon as you drive up to the simple entry gates to the privately-set Georgian property, likely to have been built as a hunting lodge, and as the avenue winds past mature Scots pines with the sea in the fullest of views rolling out underneath. Then, at its western boundary stands the evocative ruin of Courtaparteen Church, likely to be fading ever so slowly since the 17th century, gone into decline ever before the “stripling” Sprayfield came to match its moody setting.

Surf's up: Sandycove inlet and islet is next door

Look the other direction, back towards Kinsale, and the view is past Sandycove Island, the mouth of Kinsale harbour and, lo, peeping out further off, over the headland by Oysterhaven, are glimpses of the Sovereigns, a trio of rocks, the tallest some 30 metres, with its cliffs noted nesting spots for cormorants.

“I think if you were to outline what could make the perfect home, Sprayfield could be it,” says Savills estate agent Michael O’Donovan in a voice mixing admiration and envy, on a tour of the house, gardens and grounds, one that could, had time permitted, have deliciously dragged on all day.

Georgian villa grace, added to with restraint

That it is gorgeous and a gem is in no doubt, adorned as it is by art and sculpture, and its condition is excellent, nudged up along through the centuries it’s been cradled on its tended grounds by a number of mindful owners, including a German family; the current Irish-American owners have been here since the 1990s, and are now set to trade down.

It’s been fully lived in, decked out now for grandchildren’s visits and entertaining, and is ‘family sized’ at just over 3,500 sq ft and with only four bedrooms in the current configuration, while there’s also guest accommodation in a one-bed studio, at first floor level, with planning in place for this to be extended.

Sprayfield has all of its space over the one level, with expansive sea views from all of the principal day rooms and with three of the four bedrooms behind, facing the courtyard and groomed rear garden, with a pond with lilies by a stone building, draped in roses and flowering climbers, used as a wine store.

It’s symmetrical at its original four-bay core, with new spring-loaded hardwood sash windows pretty much throughout, with a main bedroom suite to the right, in a lower and slightly set back “wing”. Then, there’s a larger dining room with a projecting square bay window on the other, far side, next to a sunny breakfast room, both with access to an outdoors circulation terrace, complete with hot tub.

There’s an aged limestone columned entrance in the middle, with ornate fanlight over a sturdy, replacement solid door... the latter upgrade necessary given exposure to the Atlantic Ocean in the off-season… the name Sprayfield might be apt in the most elemental excesses.

Auctioneer Michael O’Donovan says that on a previous visit he saw surfers in the waves under Sprayfield’s sloping shoreline, while Sandycove is now a noted sea swimming spot with circuits of the island a regular event, year-round, with an annual Challenge attracting up to 300 swimmers for the 1,800-metre circuit.

Some of the land: Sandycove island is seen on the right

The cove under Sprayfield and by Courtaparteen’s stone ruins and old cemetery isn’t, however, that easy to access, while there’s a cliff-fringing pathway out from the slipway at Sandycove itself and its

stoney beach running out along to the west, along Sprayfield’s boundary where walkers get glimpses of the period home’s privileged position higher up.

The William Crozier original painting might well have depicted Sprayfield's setting

What’s seen too are the banks of PV solar panels providing up to 8kW of power, here for a good number of years as the owners were early adapters to ‘new’ technologies, whilst there’s also satellite internet, at speeds of up to 150mbs.

Heating comes from oil, with a number of low, chunky cast-iron radiators under graceful tall windows, and there’s also a
diesel-powered automatic generator in case of any loss of electrical power to the property, which includes the studio apartment, a compact double garage, five stables plus tack room, with a tennis court in the higher up section of the grounds, above a small paddock grazed by ponies.

Inside, Sprayfield is elegant, yet homely, with a central cross-shaped hallway running on an east-west axis, crossed in the middle by a wider hall section, from the fan-lit front door south running to another entrance by the courtyard, also with a fanlight over the glazed back door, while there’s also an internal, eight-pane fanlight and arched architrave as a graceful, central architectural feature.

A section of the interconnecting halls by the front door

Much of the flooring is oak herringbone parquet, and while all the main rooms have sea views, the absolute framing one is from the house’s hall core, looking through and out the front door to the sea, be it glistening azure or sulky, silver pewter.

There’s a working original doorbell and internal bell set up, with a little box above the kitchen door with six small glass windows flagging what bell, in what room or outside, attention is being requested.

The Irish Examiner visited on a warm spring day, when windows and doors were open for air circulation, while heating options in colder months span oil central heating, the powerful four-oven kitchen Aga, in the darkest inky blue, and four fireplaces, one in the main bedroom, another with stove in the front lounge’s white marble chimneypiece.

Across the entry hall is a drawing room/music room with window seats, with open fire in a limestone fireplace and, at the home’s far end in a section converted and upgraded from a former staff house, is a family room, with French doors to a terrace and with an integrated stove set into a plain limestone surround.

The living and drawing rooms have ceiling coving and roses, as does the hall, and the wood floors switch to plain carpet in the dining room.

Linking the original and once-modest-sized period home to the high-ceilinged family room (with guest WC off), is the curved breakfast room/sun room, down a few steps off the kitchen.

Basking in sun all day long, this room has a curved, front wall of floor-to-ceiling glass, high ceiling with exposed rafters and has a small apex window to direct shafts of light towards the kitchen.

You’d be hard pressed to decide what’s a favourite “red dot” spot for sitting at. The kitchen’s quite understated and timeless, but is made by the Aga’s warm presence. Then, there’s the sun room. How about dining room for gatherings? Or the calm reserve of the two (in)formal reception rooms? The view from the front door?

Then, on warm days and evenings when visitors call (the owners call the soirees “gatherings” and not “parties”) doors get thrown open to the stepped terrace from the dining/breakfast room, even down towards the family room for circulation and access to the immaculate gardens, floral but not too demanding of attention.

Well, the demands of horticultural attention are at least contextualised when put in the overall bigger picture of a 40-acre property with stables, paddocks, wild spots and walks, orchard and organic veg beds, with a shelterbelt of very mature trees and numerous Scots Pines: It’s all quite a perfect, private domain, or demesne.

This is all in a beauty spot on the sea, within a ten minute drive of Kinsale where there’s been up to 50 €1m+house sales, up to 10 €2m+ sales, and a couple at up to and over €5m.

Among the bigger recent deals was the €2.35m paid for the contemporary designed Avalon, on two acres a half kilometre or so from Sprayfield, and Sandycove has its own clutch of €1m+sales, several yet to appear on the Price Register.

Savills’ Michael O’Donovan has also gone sale agreed locally on Pau Hana, a 371 sq m modern-quality build (2003) on 1.2 acres near Couraparteen, on 1.2 acres, understood to have made over its €1.65m guide, after international interest and bidding.

Pau Hana sale agreed over its €1.65m AMV

Sandycove is within a 30-40 minute drive to Cork airport (if you can peel yourself away from its sanctuary), with the city a short spin beyond, while South Cork rolls into West Cork if you go the other direction, by car or by boat, albeit from safer anchorage points than on the rocky and reef-strewn shoreline beneath Sprayfield.

That’s if you ever want to leave.

VERDICT: Lucky is the family who can afford, and appreciate, Sprayfield. It’s a superior and understated trophy prize.... in an area not short of trophy homes.