Cork harbour's €1.95m Horsehead House is worth ponying up for

Sat, 27 May, 2023 - 12:32

Property Editor Tommy Barker reportss Pictures Shane Lyne/Lyne Media

Passage West, Cork Harbour
€1.95m
Size	650 sq ft (7,000 sq ft)
Bedrooms	6
Bathrooms	5
BER	Exempt

THE last time that Cork harbour’s period home Horsehead House came for sale, it found the right buyer — the energetic Tom McEntaggart, his wife Marie, and their children.

Interior grace throughout the ground level

That was back in 1998, just as the Irish property market was beginning to gather pace in the first years of a price spiral that only unwound from 2008.

A classic and quite ornate Tudor revival villa, designed by Sir Thomas and Kearns Deane, Horsehead was to become the Meath couple’s own family home, and they also got planning (in 1999) for a development of 50 houses and apartments in the then-six acres of grounds.

Sizeable at c 7,000 sq ft, over-basement

Later, they reduced the density, removed the apartment element and reduced it with a crescent of townhouses, which is only now coming to fruition.

In the interim, they delivered over a dozen or so large, larger and larger still, high-end detached homes, of up to and other 4,000 sq ft, all sold, and some resold since, at strong prices.

“At the time, people said you wouldn’t get good prices for new homes in Passage West. Well we proved otherwise,” smiles Tom McEntaggart today, appreciating the decision to use Dublin’s upscale Abington scheme in Malahide as a template, with three different designs delivered here by UK-based architect Melville Dunbar.

Horsehead House is on two acres, with acre of wild meadow and an acre of tended gardens

One of them topped €2m brand new, back in the 2000s, several approached €1m in recent years (No 13 fetched €975,000 in 2021), pretty much all have had extra sums lavished on them or on their landscaping and No 6, the most recent offering, made a heftier-still €1.525m.

No 6 Horsehead, built by the McEntaggarts, made €1.525m last year

Now the price bar is going to be moved on significantly again, as the original and biggest — Horsehead House itself — comes up for sale.

Very much the original of the species, and in excellent order inside and out with intricate architectural detailing and nearly twice the size of the attractive ‘upstart’ neighbours at about 7,000 sq ft, it’s on two acres with wild meadow to the left and, in contrast, refined lawns on the other side with formal landscaping.

It has several entrances, stands over- basement with a range of bone-dry lower rooms with windows, has a separate/adjunct building with lofted self-contained first-floor apartment over a new kitchen and, almost certainly, has some future development potential too if future owners want to forward or future plan their own down-size years, or explore some limited development options.

It comes for sale with agents Pat Falvey and Trevor O’Sullivan of Lisney Sotheby International Realty (Lisney SIR) with a €1.95m AMV and they say: “Horsehead House is unquestionably one of the 2023 market highlights within the Cork marketplace: We’d expect to see strong interest from both local and international markets for such a unique home.”

Enclosed courtyard with bifold doors to enlarged kitchen

Mr Falvey says: “I foresee particular interest in this harbour home from international and ex-pat homebuyers who opt to return to the homeland, with the fruits of the labours abroad, seeking something very, very special indeed.”

He also wrapped up one of Munster’s strongest deals last year, that of Dripsey Castle Estate for almost twice its €2.95m AMV, to fetch between €5.5m and €6m, sold to an Irish buyer in the broad finance sector.

His Lisney SIR colleague Trevor O’Sullivan adds “we’re going to see viewers flying in from the four corners into Cork for this harbour one-off.”

(PS and, if they don’t necessarily fly in for the walk-in order Horsehead House, some of that similar cadre of ‘money’s-no-object’ buyers might well also be flying in for an even bigger imminent Cork harbour period home listing, over twice the price of Horsehead, on significant amounts of land, much of it with water frontage... it could be an interesting summer, after a sluggish start to the 2023 market. Watch these pages...)

Horsehead House dates to 1836, one of a core of very significant homes built in the first half of the 19th century as Passage West, Glenbrook, and Monkstown made a splash on the map of Cork harbour, due to ferries, fishing, boat building, and dock yards, provisioning and cargo handling.

Other notable harbour houses close to it include Ardmore House, Rockenham, Lee Carrow, Marmullane, and Mount Prospect (now Mount St Joseph), the latter also attributed to Sir Thomas Deane and, again with ornate Tudor-bethan flourishes and finery.

Horsehead House still connects visually to the waters of the harbour, seen in snatches between the new, mellow brick detacheds built beyond its retained lawns and acre meadow. It’s quite a sweep of view, north and east toward Little Island and Glounthaune, and over the river channel to the former NET Marino Point site, excavated in the 1970s, and recently gone into Port of Cork ownership with its dirty, banging and clanging industry (making fertiliser) a thing of the past, to Passage West residents’ delight.

Horsehead was built by a Samuel Lane and his son William, of Frankfield House and was leased for many, many years to a number of family tenants. A descendant of later owners, the naturalist and traveller Richard Hingston suggested in a brief 1990s history that it may have gotten its name from the harbour projection where it’s now sited having been used as a spot to embark horses onto boats for the 1808-1814 Peninsula Wars by Sir Arthur Wellesley (later the Duke of Wellington).

The couple now selling here — with family reared and another grandchild due via a daughter living in the guest apartment — accept the line “that you only get to caretake a house like this, over its long life it will have many owners and raise many families,”and are handing it over in excellent order for whoever next falls for it.

They bought on first sight in ‘98... not even bothering with a engineer’s survey.It hasn’t let them down, clearly.

Architecturally and detail wise, it’s got a number of “set pieces”, from multiple chimneys — some octagonal-shaped — to its stepped gables, feature bay windows with hoodmoulds and gothic -style tracery, and its elegant front double doors with polished brasses, over-panes, and draping wisteria.

It’s all off-centre, or irregular in its floor plan, with three reception rooms on the garden side, two of them interlinked and formal with matching modest-size old Waterford crystal chandeliers, while a separate room beyond is a music room, well able to accommodate a baby grand piano, almost as an afterthought among other fine furniture pieces.

Windows in each one are lovelier than the next, sashes with shutters, high ceilings, gleaming mahogany parquet flooring, and with fireplaces, an adjunct to the central heating.

Previous owners added a large sunroom left of the hall decades ago, about 22ft by 26ft with contemporary tiled floor and further fireplace, and it’s a perfect family lounging/sprawling spot, by day, night or for party gatherings.

Next to it is the double-aspect dining room, done with hardwood flooring with an Aga and garden access and, linked to it, behind the vastly enlarged family kitchen, largely with free-standing units including painted old oak dressers, a quartz-topped island with hob, open shelving and a powerful 7kW wood-burning stove whose flue helps warm the lofted apartment overhead, a one-time grain store. Bifold doors by the dining table draw back to open onto a sheltered courtyard with old stone buildings, multi-purpose/storage/potting shed, with an old well and immense limestone surround and, again, there’s a wonderful abundance of wisteria, currently coming to the end of its flowering season.

Also at ground is a York stone porch, elegant entry hall with large electrically lowered chandelier, and an off-centre elegant staircase, with tall side wall window and continuous, sinuous polished hardwood handrail, ending in a monkey tail swirl.

Once upstairs, the current layout sees four bedrooms off two landings, two of the bedrooms are double aspect and two are ensuite.

The fifth bedroom is over the kitchen, a very characterful space with super-high vaulted ceilings and enormous exposed pegged beams. Getting an internal second stairs up from the kitchen is an obvious option if new owners don’t want what is in effect right now a standalone suite up there?

There are many other options, too: how about the basement for starters?

There’s easy internal access to this lower level suite of rooms, multi-purpose, dry and bright with good headroom. Most have windows thanks to a moat-like lower outdoor ring on two of three sides (pic right), and they include optional further bedrooms/gym/home cinema, an in-situ bathroom and a games room, which is home to a full-size snooker table since at least two ownerships ago, by the Kelleher family.

Preparing for viewings, selling agents Lisney SIR say Horsehead House has retained old-world charm but also incorporates modern conveniences and amenities, with interior finishes and detailing to suit.

They stress the quality of the work done by the vendors; the planting; the privacy; the authenticity, and the heritage, as well as the harbour aspect —with the highly popular Cork Harbour Blackrock to Monkstown Blueway/Greenway amenity walk close to the perimeter, along the old rail line route fringing the waters of the Lee and its estuarine twists and turns.

VERDICT: Horsehead House is, indeed, the real deal. Horses for courses for those who can afford the likes of a substantial period home and grounds. Well worth ponying up for.