French gîte influence at €470,000 Beacon Cottage with sea view
bEACON cOTTAGE, cLOYNE
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Cloyne, East Cork |
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€470,000 |
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Size |
167 sq m (1800 sq ft) |
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Bedrooms |
3 |
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Bathrooms |
2 |
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BER |
B3 |
THE easy-living beach-house style at Beacon Cottage may look effortless, but in fact everything was carefully curated by its fabric-designer owner, who understood how to work with sun-bleached tones, crisp whites and Med-like blues.
She also had an eye for signature pieces, collected over the course of a peripatetic lifestyle, some of which made their way to East Cork from exotic Marrakesh or from France, like the extremely heavy gorgeous antique sideboard that forms a partition between the kitchen and the spacious, light-filled open-plan living area, where little lanterns from Morocco light up alcoves.
As she and her husband split their time between Ireland and France, the owner says there’s a strong French influence in the interiors, “but the reality is there’s a little bit of influence from everywhere”.
The cottage is utterly transformed from how it used to look when built in the 1980s, following a complete overhaul after the current owners bought it in 2016 for €283,000.
“It was freezing, it needed a new roof and insulation, so we essentially gutted it and put it back together again,” the owner says.
They extended it too, doubling the living space in the process and adding another bedroom. The insulation work involved an external wrap and the installation of triple-glazed windows.
“There’s huge solar gain now in the open plan kitchen/living/dining area,” the owner says.
A pretty porch was added too, with a mini fanlight over the front door and the blue of the walls is picked up in the blue and cream floor tiles.
The couple either bleached or re-tiled all of the floors, using porcelain or marble-look.
“It was my first time having a cottage by the sea and I wanted to keep very much with the coastal theme,” says the owner, and she did just that, sticking with traditional blues and whites, starting with the pale blue entrance gate, continuing through the pale blue front door to the porch, and picking it up again in soft furnishings and in the slender blue shutter next to a window near the kitchen.
“I hung it there to identify the area beneath the window as a separate space where we have a little table where you can relax with a coffee or use it as a work space,” the woman of the house says.
The open plan area is arranged in such a way that there are effectively two separate sitting rooms, one at the kitchen end, with a Jotul woodburning stove to keep thing cosy (even the stove is white to maintain the colour tones) and another opposite the dining area.
Patio doors open from this end of the room to a large, south-facing patio, with expansive views, to Ballyshane Beach on one side and Ballybrannigan Beach on the other.
“The views are really quite beautiful,” the owner says and the vista is filled by sea and sky, beyond the long, meticulously mowed rear garden, which takes up the greater part of the 0.5 acre site, and includes a garden shed that could become a garden room.
The owner says lots of work was done outdoors, including getting rid of unwieldly hedging out front. Now you see low, pretty, white-washed, curved walls around raised flower beds, with light-coloured gravel and some very nice landscaping.
Back indoors, the main bedroom is downstairs, and comes with walk-in wardrobe and ensuite.
“That was the original bedroom and the nice thing is that when guests come to stay, they have their own space upstairs,” the owner says.
One of two upstairs bedrooms is currently being used as a dressing room. The main bathroom is upstairs too.
The owners did not move the stairs during their renovation project and it separates the hallway from a utility room/pantry to the rear, accessed from the open-plan area.
“For what looks like a little hallway, it took a lot of furniture. We downsized to that house but we were able to fit more than we expected in the hallway,” the owner says.
When they bought the house six years ago, it was from Adrianna Hegarty of Hegarty Properties and the same agent returns to sell it once more.
Ms Hegarty describes it as “a home that exudes timeless elegance, with a sophisticated French style of décor...a delightful fusion of contemporary comforts and classic allure”.
She can fully appreciate the changes the current owners have wrought. Beacon Cottage, in Ballyshane, outside Cloyne, was 1200 sq ft when they bought it from her in 2017, and now it’s just under 1800 sq ft. Moreover its energy rating has gone from a D2 to a very respectable B3. Ms Hegarty said the changes wrought by the owners are immense and she is selling it now with a guide price of €470,000.
Location-wise, Ms Hegarty says it’s close to beaches at Ballyshane and Ballybrannigan, while the villages of Cloyne and Ballycotton and the town of Midleton are easily reached.
“There’s very big demand for properties with sea views and this one will attract both buyers looking for a permanent home and for a holiday home,” Ms Hegarty says, adding that she’s already seen interest from home-hunters in the neighbourhood. She also expects interest from overseas. The vendors are selling up as they plan to spend more time in France.
A quality renovation job and a good eye for interior design has created a coastal gem.
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