Mizen Head's Gull Cottage a well-feathered nest in 'Crook'

Deceptive Crookhaven home with two different sets of water views has been worked on over decades

Crooked road: Crookhaven's Gull Cottage (second from bottom, right) is a comfy nesting spot

Fri, 18 Aug, 2023 - 00:00

Property Editor Tommy Barker reports Pictures Tom Vaughan

Crookhaven, Mizen Head, West Cork
€795,000
Size	110 sq m (1,200 sq ft)
Bedrooms	3
Bathrooms	2
BER	D1

RELAND’S natural beauty only steps up a further and final gear or two the further down into the south west that a traveler ventures.

Wending out the Mizen Head peninsula, the brooding Brow Head emerges as Ireland’s most southerly point and, oft times along with Fastnet Lighthouse, is a first point of reference for transatlantic sailors — no wonder its otherworldly quality saw the high headland and cliffs on “the Brow” taken over as a film location back in 2016 for Star Wars.

Hollywood royalty in the guise of The Force came to Mizen Head as well as Malin Head and points in between along the Wild Atlantic Way, along with offshore the Skelligs, with several hundred Star Wars crew and stars sequestered around Skibbereen, Schull, Goleen, and Crookhaven for several weeks, boosting the off- or pre-season summer in May 2016.

Filming on Star Wars movie at Brow Head, Ireland's most southerly point. Picture Dan Linehan

Now, after the post-movie Star Wars Episode VIII The Last Jedi lull, many and all of those same coastal communities were busy again last weekend when Crookhaven’s Gull Cottage came up for sale as an end-season offer.

It came in peak local sailing week too, with Calves Week Regattaf in nearby Schull, eight miles away as the gull flies, whilst sailing classes continue for more junior sea farers at Crookhaven’s Harbour Sailing Club, by the pier and bars.

Open plan living/dining and lofty sunroom

Carrying its jaunty maritime name with aplomb, Crook’s Gull Cottage is a twice (if not thrice) reworked home on the high approach into the seaside village and safe berthing spot in almost all weathers: Notably too, it has those essential water views in not just one, but two directions.

The views go far and wide to the south, to the wide and wild Atlantic over rugged fields, and then across the road leading into the calmer confines of Crookhaven harbour, overlooking safe moorings where some craft are as valuable as the already valuable homes which overlook them.

(Crookhaven’s highest price paid of late was the €1.2m secured for the three-bed, 1,700 sq ft water-fronting Journey’s End, a former restaurant 250m from Gull Cottage, and which had carried a €850,000 AMV).

Priced at €795,000 by agent Colm Cleary of Schull-based James Lyons O’Keefe (who also sold Word’s End), Gull Cottage is set off-road, just past the old stone Anglican church, the venerable St Brendan the Navigator’s — with roots going back centuries and which holds services by gaslight and candlelight, and is almost directly across the road from it.

Gull Cottage is effectively set as the second house on the right swinging down into the village which then unfurls with a charming old fashioned streetscape and tumbling mix of a mix of house types, from lofty Marconi House, to wee cottages, and the plushest of plush holiday homes before ending by the pier and the legendary O’Sullivans Bar.

Now stone-clad all around its exterior, Gull Cottage is deceiving as to the space within. That’s down to sensitive design when it was first taken in hand around 1996 by its owners from Cork city who have long family holiday-making links to Crookhaven and Barleycove, into a third generation.

By 1996 they employed an architect locally, Peter Manford who’d been based at Journey’s End with his partner, restaurateur Ina Manahan, and asked him to reconfigure the original 1960s-era design bought from an overseas owner.

The architect suggested extending to the side and back, by adding stepped roof profiles so as not to bulk it up too much, using the rooflines of the adjacent St Brendan’s Church (pic, right) and its gable porch as a local reference.

He also turned around the entrances, and cut short an internal corridor, so that now arrivals are via the kitchen, in true Irish country living style, with access at the more private south side to a raised terrace off the main living room/sun room and dining area.

It works as a slightly compartmentalised open area, with clearly demarcated uses, airy in the extreme, double aspect for the front and back water views at the core, with a double height vaulted ceiling in the triple aspect sun room.

There are faint nods to “Hamptons-style” living vibes within in the understated and pristine décor, with lots of maritime, coastal and scenic West Cork photography (including a selection by the late Irish Examiner photographer Denis Scannell). Might the next owners will go further, the full gull, on this theme?

Entirely stone-clad for easy keeping out of season

As it solidly stands, and now entirely wrapped in stone for a near-maintenance free exterior and all-weather hardiness (the stone was done in 1996 too, removing the old bungalow aesthetic), Gull Cottage has 1,200 sq ft internally, with three bedrooms, one of them (the end, main one) en suite. Both it and the main bathroom got full overhauls (new tiling, sanitary ware, rainfall shower, the works) in 2019 (done by Martin O'Meara of Harbour Homes) when the interior was again updated, and when an efficient and neat wood-burning stove was fitted in the main living area hearth and chimney breast.

There’s double glazing and oil heating for creature comforts, with the boiler under the house’s terrace where there’s also a very useful bone dry utility/laundry room with storage for sailing and sports equipment.

The terrace above now has breeze-breaking glass balusters held firm in expensive stainless steel stanchions, allowing for extended “sitting out” periods off the sun room in almost any weathers.

The sweep of the Fastnet Lighthouse is, however, just blocked from the property by a low rising hill to the south, with a jagged outline in three stages and the skyline is slightly broken by a stone “throne” put up above the shoreline by an adjacent landowner for the commanding views at that point (sometime visited by “twitcher” birdwatchers too).

On the day the Irish Examiner visited, yachts going past the Fastnet and Brow Head (headed to Dingle on this classic south-west coastline?) came tantalisingly into view, all the better to be spied upon with a telescope.

Might the next owners seek to go up a level, for even better view and even more space? It would be a temptation, surely, subject to planning permission, and there’s already Stira access to a part-floored attic under the tiled roof.

Or, if so inclined to make optional changes and their own, next “stamp”, they might also add another balcony outside the main end bedroom, put in a large sliding door there and link back to the existing elevated terrace above the good-sized c 0.2-acre private site for even more al fresco space.

Or, they can leave well enough alone, as Gull Cottage is true to its reborn self, with subtle attention to quality finishes (builder was Tim Collins) in the joinery, in the (now painted) solid timber doors made for here by Ballydehob’s Pat O’Regan, stainless steel door fittings, neutrally tiled bathrooms ware and kitchen, by Cloghane Wood Products), with pale stone and timber worktops, and views from the sink to the harbour beyond.

Agent Colm Cleary says “it’s a superb coastal home within Crookhaven village. It is a pleasure to have available to buyers who seek quality, sea views and the lifestyle the area affords.”

VERDICT: There’s nothing at all to do at the ship-shape Gull Cottage and its “rare bird” double aspect views of ocean in one direction and sheltered harbour on the other, bar move in and feather your new nest.