Coast is clear at Kilbrittain's The Caverns on 3.3 acres on the shoreline

1960s design makes the most of its coastline site: yours for €1.35m

Tiny swimming coves and caves near the headland. Sherry FitzGerald O'Neill/Country Home guides at €1.35m

Kilbrittain, West Cork
€1.35m
Size	190 sq m (2,050 sq ft)
Bedrooms	5
Bathrooms	3
BER	D2

GROWING up by the sea can be contagious: it can foster a love of swimming, of fishing, rowing, sailing, and nature.

Picture windows and a coastal panorama outside

For the Guy family who grew up at The Caverns in Cork’s Harbour View by beaches and Kilbrittain, the salt seeped into their bones, from swimming to sailing, says one of the four Guy family offspring, Mandy Perkinson, who went on to sail around the world not once but twice, on a 56’ sloop, with her husband, fishing trawler owner Sean.

1960s architectural style still has a currency today

On one quite recent occasion, she anchored in Courtmacsherry to visit her mother Peggy (Margaret), stayed a while and when she said goodbye, it was to sail a long stretch back to Australia on a 65’ yacht ….as if a goodbye at the airport before a long-distance haul isn’t hard enough, not to mind crossing oceans and the equator.

Sea on the doorstep

The love of the sea was quite probably fated for the Guy clan of Susie, Chris, Mandy and Simon Guy, after their parents John and Peggy (nee Good, a West Cork woman) decided to move full time to their holiday home, in 1976, and to sell up and cast off from Cork city where John was involved in the Guy & Company family business.

View to Courtmacsherry's Wood Point

The Guy parents had bought a site from a local Kilbrittain farm family the Aherns in the early 1960s, and used the services of architect Ken Hunt to design this classic architectural seaside chalet, later extending it to just over 2,000 sq ft when it was their full-time residence.

That relocation decision was sort of ahead of its time in the 1970s, sort of mirroring the lifestyle shift to the sea, or to the countryside in the recent pandemic and post-pandemic period.

The Caverns served as a full-time home for Mrs Peggy Guy up until her death in early 2021, aged in her early 90s, after being widowed young when John died just before his 60th birthday.

Hit the decks

Though a wrench now, the now adult offspring and their own families have decided to sell The Caverns, with all of its happy memories of ‘Swallows and Amazons’ carefree days of sailing in and beyond Courtmacsherry Bay and of cycling the West Cork byroads: Mandy recalls sharing the roads with horse-drawn caravans operated out of Kilbrittain by the Desmond family, which had the effect of slowing down the 1960s and ‘70s summer tourist traffic.

Horse drawn caravans like this were a common sight around Kilbrittain in earlier decades: this 1997 image is from the Ring of Kerry

The Caverns, called after the small caves and inlets along this shoreline, hit the May market, with a €1.35m AMV quoted by agents Ray O’Neill of Sherry FitzGerald O’Neill in nearby Clonakilty and Roseanne De Vere Hunt of Sherry Fitz’s Country Homes division: viewings have just started, in full sunshine, and just as sailing craft once more start to dot the water in and out of Courtmacsherry.

Notably, the past decade or two has seen some spectacular, architect-designed homes built along the very same (but far busier) scenic seaside stretches between West Cork’s Ballinspittle village and Timoleague.

But, here’s one that was prepared before, 1960s to its fingertips, an original of the flat-roof species, and in a location that’s hard for any upstart rivals to beat.

Although you can’t see it from anywhere but the sea, or via a drone or Google Earth, The Caverns will be easy to find or to give direction to: It’s directly across the road from the Pink Elephant restaurant bar, in business since around the time The Caverns got built on the sea side of the R600, now on the Wild Atlantic Way.

Set on 3.3 acres, with 135m of shoreline frontage overlooking Courtmacsherry Bay, Woodpoint, and back towards Harbour View and Coolmain, The Caverns is a low-slung, architect-designed single storey home with flat roofs, and quite large ‘picture’ windows.

It is double or even triple aspect to its main rooms to the front and, while it looks to be timber-clad, was actually block-built using a sort of cast concrete finish to ape cladding, but which will withstand the worst weathers the Atlantic can throw at it.

Dine on the views at this double aspect dining room

Designed by architect Ken Hunt and built by West Cork’s Crowley Brothers who made good use of this concrete-clad look in the past, the circa. 60 years old holiday home has indeed stood up to the worst of weather excesses, storms and hurricanes, the lot.

It’s been in the same Guy clan hands from day one, has grown with the family, with a garden planted to suit the site’s exposure, and has its own path and rocky access to the sea for a dip.

There’s a slender slipway just to the west for kayak launching, plus the long-established Pink Elephant across the road for beverages and meals (its website says it’s currently closed due to staff shortages).

Just on the market prior to this Bank Holiday Weekend, it could nearly sell itself in such perfect conditions, while the Cork coastline’s prime market remains almost as heated with a number of recent €1m+ sales between the city and the Mizen.

The D2-rated house tips over 2,000 sq ft, with two bedrooms to the front, two more are behind, with a triple-aspect main lounge with stove on the western flank, and a double-aspect “time capsule” kitchen and dining room at the far end.

It’s approached by a short but concealing avenue from the road, to a sheltered entrance with garage to the right, and is in good overall shape (you could happily holiday here this summer) albeit with dated décor.

Tipping it as “one of the best sites in Ireland,” with a private path to the sea for tiny cove dips, the selling agents describe it as “a magnificent lifestyle property, in an exceptional coastal location,” and say there’s scope for any new owners to create their own dream beach house at The Caverns.

It could be reconfigured inside, extended upwards (subject to planning permission) or even downwards?

Any architect worth her or his sea-salt would be champing at the bit to do their own bit with it, and most likely in quite the same sort of design aesthetic, ie flat or low- pitch roofs, beach-clad look and glass, more and more glass, now that glazing technology has move on half a century in capabilities since The Caverns first got hunkered down.

VERDICT: Sail on: there’s no sign of the tidal surge and monied appetite for properties on the sea waning in any way, even more so for those with water frontage, and above any rising sea-level threats.