Waterfront artful living on Bantry Bay with new options at sculptor's home

Ballylickey's Carrigdhoun Quay now has options to build bigger, and anew, or just to renew

As Carrigdhoun Quay sits currently at Ballylickey on Bantry Bay. Liam Hodnett of Hodnett Forde guides the relaunch at an even €500k

Ballylickey, Bantry Bay
€500,000
Size	129 sq m (1,380 sqft) but full planning for replacement larger 1,550 sq ft home
Bedrooms	3
Bathrooms	1
BER	G (at present)

THE chance to etch your own niche in one of the most scenic stretches of the Wild Atlantic Way in West Cork has come around again, in the former — or, more likely, an updated replacement — home of sculptor Alexander Sokolov Grant, at beautiful Ballylickey, on the shores of Bantry Bay.

Image of new Carrigdhoun Quay option designed by Bantry's DMCA

Sokolov Grant’s private waterside retreat came for sale two years ago, shortly after the death of the artist of White Russian heritage in March 2022.

His parents, Michael Sokolov — who’d served in the royal navy — and mother Shiela Grant Duff, who was a war correspondent with The Observer and the BBC, had moved from England to coastal Cork’s Castletownshend in the early 1970s.

Fresh lick of paint at Ballylickey....

Alexander also had a home in Dublin’s Glasthule, and lived for a time in Europe.

When his Carrigdhoun Quay spot came to market that summer, it was brimful with many of his sculptures and busts done in the old “taille direct” carving method, as well as books, kilims, and family artefacts almost out of place and out of time within this 1930s-era Ballylickey bungalow where he had lived.

FPP allows for new build to be closer to the water

Given it was on the N71 and Wild Atlantic Way with water frontage to Bantry Bay, a few miles from Bantry en route to Glengarriff and thus on a “golden mile”, interest on its market launch was high — despite being an obvious do-er upper or even a knock--down.

Carrigdhoun Quay as it looked two years ago

All options are back on the table now for summer 2024, but now it returns to market as a cleared-out property with full planning permission for a replacement 145 sq m/1,550 sq ft dormer dwelling.

The comforts of an A-rated new build might tempt others this time around?

In 2022, it had a €335,000 AMV cited by agent Liam Hodnett, of Hodnett Forde, and he took it to auction in August 2022 — when it made €100,000 over the asking, €435,000, to an Irish buyer with international tech/design background.

The house as it currently stands (file image)

That buyer got full planning for a slightly larger replacement dormer, a contemporary design with balcony, and a reposition closer to the water, further from the broad, bending N71 road, with planning achieved by Bantry-based specialist Diarmuid McCarthy, of DMCA — a multi-generational family design and engineering firm with decades experience in the wider West Cork hinterland.

This DMCA design is for a still-modest c 1,550 sq ft home

Mr McCarthy had previously done work here for Sokolov Grant (receiving a book of his art output in the process!), and has also worked on castles, period properties, restorations, one-off homes, and niche schemes.

Keep up with the neighbours? Westerly, as seen in 2014. Pic  Denis Scannell

He also did work for the owners of the adjoining Westerly, a superb large timber frame home (one of the earliest in West Cork in the mid 1900s) — at one time a holiday home for the late Fine Gael minister Peter Barry and family at Ballylickey — and now a high-end rental. Mr McCarthy did further work for the Barrys at Westerly, notably creating a floating pontoon.

Play pontoon? Pic: Denis Scannell

He knows the West Cork coastline intimately, saying “one of my most favourite places to be would be here at this property, where you could put a kayak in the water of Bantry Bay from your garden, and you have Manning’s [food emporium] just across the road.”

Local crew: Manning's Emporium 

The current owner of Carrigdhoun Quay, who has a very large period home in North Cork, also explored an option to improve road access at Carrigdhoun Quay’s mature site. However, while he got the planning for a replacement dwelling, he didn’t follow through on that alternative access point.

Instead, he found a putative buyer a year ago, who paid a deposit but failed to proceed. Now Quay goes back on the open market with options to renovate, or extend.

As it’s been vacant for years, it may qualify for grants under the derelict/vacant homes schemes and SEAI supports for energy upgrades.

VERDICT: Building anew, closer to the shoreline, but safely above it, would make skimming a stone from your doorstep across the waters of Bantry Bay even easier than it already is.