North Cork home for €1m is perfect for a horse loving family

Facilities include a walker and tack room

Farm Hill, Dromina, North Cork.

Dromina, North Cork
€1 million
Size	312 sq m (3,350 sq ft)
Bedrooms	4/5
Bathrooms	5
BER	Exempt

It’s hard to know who is the more pampered at Farm Hill House – horses, or humans?

The north Cork Georgian era home, visible on the first Ordnance Survey maps and still in robust good health, has been home to several equine enthusiasts down the years….you hardly need the bronze, life-size sculpture of a jumping horse to drive home the point.

While the 19th century home on its c 25 acres is comfortable for humans, with four en suite bedrooms, plus Jacuzzi bath in the main suite, expensive mahogany joinery, well proportioned rooms and a covered walkway to an enormous lofted games room and gym, the horses which have been an integral part of the property (it boasts a Wokingham Stakes at Ascot winner in its legacy) may fare even better.

First, while the humans have 3,350 sq ft to spread out in, the horses have up to 25 acres, or at least 20 when the property mix of buildings, pristine yard and adjacent woodland is subtracted, and there’s a surrounding shelter belt of state forestry for possible hacks around.

The facilities for four-legged inhabitants runs to a horse walker for six, stables, tack room, lunging ring, hay barn, a 20x40 sand arena and a jumping lane: it’s all “a showcase of care and attention to detail,” says Siobhan Mullins of auctioneering firm Liam Mullins, who launch it this spring at an even €1 million AMV.

Its owners are now trading down, having reared a family and trained horses here, and are moving towards the West Cork coastline for a change of scene.

An Irish family, they've been here for 18 years and have signalled their equine obsessions by the purchase of the bronze horse sculpture from a German artist some years back after they successfully sold a stallion.

Previous owners included – for a very long time - the O’Sullivan family, and it has also been historically associated with Morris and Goold landowning families.

Farm Hill House is at a spot called High Teeveeney, near Dromina and Liscarroll, about an hour’s commute to both Limerick and Cork cities and airport, faces south-east and is private in the extreme, up a long approach avenue running by paddocks.

Once you’re home here, you are indeed home and largely self-sufficient, with its two main receptions room both being double aspect, the kitchen has a large island, unusually bookended by a tall double fridge, it has an Aga, and room sizes are generous, with 10’ ceilings at ground and 9’ on the next level above, with most internal joinery dark hardwoods.

While Farm Hill has been noted for its horses (‘A Touch of Grey won at Ascot’s Wokingham Stakes in the 1980s), and its equine facilities are immaculate, the exercise and diversion options are plentiful for families also.

The L-shaped private two-storey home is BER-exempt, has replacement pvc double glazing and oil central heating and is flanked on either side by older-era stone outbuildings, in great nick, with a roofed over walkway to one long building which serves as a garden room with stove/office, plus gym/games room, complete with air hockey, pool table, foosball, gym equipment and boxing punchbag.

VERDICT: Will be a perfect fit for a horse loving family.