You have a castle for company at €725k trade-down Blackrock bungalow

No 10 Sandy Lane near Blackrock Castle is a tasty buy for better-heeled traders down ..or younger upstarts?

Fri, 09 Feb, 2024 - 00:00

Property Editor Tommy Barker reports

Castle Road, Blackrock, Cork
€725,000
Size	153 sq m (1,600 sq ft)
Bedrooms	3
Bathrooms	2
BER	B3

THE OWNERS of 10 Sandy Lane off Cork’s city’s Castle Road, near famed Blackrock Castle, bought off-market in 2018 and, since, “have raised this house to the next level,” says its selling agent Jackie Cohalan.

Curtains as a room divider to the hall give a sense of quiet drama

They certainly have in terms of improvements to the property they purchased back in 2018 in an off-market sale, including insulation upgrades, décor, a new kitchen, redone bathroom and enlarged en suite.

It’s now very much a different home, “next level” in terms of interior quality, and the location speaks (in posh tones) for itself.

Yet, in other ways, there is still a “next level” that might be achieved: it’s still a bungalow, albeit a 153 sq m home that has all of its accommodation on the one level, at the rear end of a cul de sac where most of its neighbours are two-storey houses.

Might the next owners consider building upwards?

There’s already a well-proven formula for those who’d think about doubling-up post-purchase, although not yet implemented in Sandy Lane itself.

That’s because the original builders, O’Brien & O’Flynn, who did the linked Sandy Lane, Sandy Lawn and Gate Lodge Castle Road schemes nearly 25 years ago, had also built very similar bungalows to No 10 at their Foxwood scheme in Garryduff/Rochestown.

There, a number of occupants and subsequent buyers have successfully turned their original single storey bungalows into dormers, some of which have featured in these pages before when up for re-sale.

Those with further upwardly mobile aspirations casting an eye on this Castle Road/harbour area address might do well to drive around Foxwood in more elevated Rochetown to get an idea of just how successfully these original ‘standard’ bungalows with central, front-to-back hallways can be significantly enlarged, and thus yield even larger homes and big, first floor bedroom suites.

But, as it currently stands, an unchanged No 10 will be bang on for many buyers in terms of space and appearances.

It’s a three-bed, one en suite home, now over the 1,600 sq ft) mark, following a rear extension, with lofty height added on by the kitchen for a bright living area, with extensive glazing on three sides and pitched and beamed ceilings.

While that addition was courtesy of previous long-time owners, the current occupants put their own stamp on the main front bedroom, adding a decent en suite out along the house’s side wall, so now the fresh and contemporary wash room has a separate shower cubicle and, at the far end, by a large window overlooking the private back garden, is a stand-alone oval bath. The room also has a Velux overhead, black and white tiled floor, currently full of house plants and with a black ceiling.

Other bold colour choices are seen throughout, with walls painted white, red, blue, green and inky grey/black, sometimes contrasting, but all done with an assuredness that really works.

Two of its three bedrooms are doubles, and all are on the left of the central hall, as is the main bathroom with shower, while a front reception room on the immediate right is screened from the hall by heavy, dark green curtains to match the walls.

This front room has a simple box bay window (like the main bedroom across the hall,) and hardwood floor, a 1930s-style dark wood fire surround with cast iron insert and there’s a smaller linked living room behind via a squared arch, with its walls painted a dark blue.

Whoever espouses the old line, “blue and green should not be seen together” might have prejudices rattled by this pairing?

Also in a contrast are the walls in the front, oak-floored bedroom, one’s close to navy blue, another’s red and the bedhead is upholstered in a red check.

Other solid colours abound in the furniture and cushion colours, and the same ‘good eye’ appears present in the choice of displayed art, abundantly on the walls and on display, while seating and other furniture pieces including display cabinets and various stands appear to date to the early 1900s, or before, several likely to be heirlooms.

No 10’s owners are retirees with adult children and Cohalan Downing estate agent Jackie Cohalan says they are selling after six years to be closer to family and grandchildren in West Cork.

Will the next occupants fit a similar sort of age profile, retirees or others trading down? Will they be locals, young professionals, families, singles?

Actually, it could be any of those but a family may well consider building upwards to create a two-storey dwelling of this already exceptionally comfortable bungalow, bringing it over the 2,000 sq ft) mark.

The departing vendors brought the BER up from a D1 rating to a very good B3, so next owners may quality for a lower rate ’green’ mortgage, unless indeed they have already sold up and are cash rich, and looking for an easy life, in a quiet setting.

No 10 has good off-street parking, landscaped grounds with patio, planting and gravel beds but no lawn. The location is almost across the Castle Road from Blackrock Castle and within a stroll of Blackrock village and the Marina, with the Greenway walk fringing this end of the Mahon Peninsula leading onto to Rochestown and Monkstown (see also this weekend's House of the Weektrade-down option in Monkstown).

VERDICT: By nomenclature coincidence, there’s another Sandy Lane address down the road in Cork’s Monkstown, as well as an even more salubrious Sandy Lane, the luxury resort in sun-kissed Barbados where property prices typically are in the multi-million euro price bracket, where a home buyer might well have to move the decimal point a place to the right from No 10’s €725,000 AMV to €7.25m, or even more…