Property guru who sourced homes for the rich and famous, including Graham Norton, is selling up

This time Stephen Jeffery is pitching his own Argideen home and it's in fine shape

Mon, 08 May, 2023 - 07:07

Property Editor Tommy Barker reports Pictures Niamh Whitty

Timoleague, West Cork
€565,000
Size	168 sq m (1,814 sq ft
Bedrooms	4
Bathrooms	3
BER	C2

HAVING helped the rich and the famous – from Michael Flatley to Graham Norton and singer (Steven) Morrissey amongst others to source and buy homes, and indeed castles all over Co Cork over a quarter of a century, property consultant Stephen Jeffery is now on the hunt for at least one more special place…for himself, and his wife Fran.

Marriage made in West Cork: guests at Graham Norton's Ahakista home wedding party/celebration last July. Picture; Eddie O'Hare

And, they are looking at the smaller end of the scale from the echelons at which this ‘Buyer’s Agent’ has more typically worked, as they prepare to trade down from this pristine dormer home near Timoleague in West Cork, after decades in the property business, at the buying end more than the selling end.

The couple moved to Cork in 1998 from the UK’s Newbury and London area after Stephen had a few decades as a residential auctioneer under his belt and after a company sale gave him freedom to move, and he knew Ireland from childhood holidays with his parents many decades ago.

He’s since seen the highs and lows and highs again of the Irish property market, and reckons he’s been privileged enough to have been inside up to 300 period, mostly Georgian, properties in Cork where he’s conducted most of his property searches for retained clients, and the majority of his successful purchases have been made off-market.

Among his successes was buying Castlehyde for Michael Flatley and only after an attempt to be gazumped by another American bidder was met with a stiff legal rebuff, via a legal manouevre knows as a lis pendens.

Castlehyde House near Fermoy as it looked in 1999

He sourced the waterside home in Ahakista for Graham Norton (though he had tried to woo him with Blairs Cove instead), got Rathbarry Castle farmhouse for Stephen Evans Freke who bought back Castlefreke Castle also, bought land on the Galley Head lighthouse/Dundeady peninsula for a UK based businessman with wide property interests. And source many other coastal properties over the years, occasionally straying as far as Tipperary and Roscommon.

His modus operandi was often to “tap on the door and ask would you sell if you got a good offer?” he explained.

Now, home hunter around West Cork’s Bandon, Timoleague and Clonakilty will have to tap the phone number of estate agent Mark Kelly of Hodnett Forde to get a viewing at the Jefferys own private home, near Argideen and the Inchy bridge at Killavarrig.

The couple had bought the 2005-built dormer in 2012, and redid all the interiors: Fran has worked widely in interiors, doing colours, fabrics and curtains for high-end clients, including at the guest wing of Bantry House, while Stephen has managed a number of properties and overhauls for clients he sourced Irish homes for.

Unsurprisingly, the 1,800 sq ft four-bed dormer with a stone and brick façade is in tip top order, inside and outside, with new bathrooms, smart kitchen, sun room, block-built and insulated detached garage, and a recently added polytunnel, a lockdown life saver project to plant up and harvest from, they say.

The Argideen valley property also has a dog/hen run, while the acre has its lawns kept trim by a Husquavarna 430 robotic lawnmower and other signs of moving with the times are the presence of an EV charge point for cars, and a generator for any power outages, a nice boon to have up the sleeve for any buyers who need to work from home.

Setting at Killavarrig Timoleague, by the Argideen river

Hodnett Forde guide the walk-in order home at €565,000 and started first viewing this week.

And, when it’s sale agreed, downsizing vendor Stephen Jeffery will get back into familiar work mode, knocking on doors of smaller homes on less ground in the overall area, asking “would you sell if you got a good offer?” Only this time, it’s his own money on the table.

VERDICT: Like the ticket touts shout out at the big gigs and matches, “anyone buying or selling?” Being sold for a property pro, who is more used to buying.