Get in on the buzz at €220,000 Bumblebee Cottage, it's the bee's knees 

Glanmire home is a whimsical proposition

Bumblebee Cottage

Glanmire, Cork
€220,000
Size	63 sq m (680 sq ft)
Bedrooms	2
Bathrooms	1
BER	G

BUMBLEBEES, furry little beacons of industry, are up and at ‘em before dawn, doing all sorts of work essential to the survival of our fragile ecosystem. Bumblebee Cottage in Glanmire is named in honour of these tireless pollinators and it’s a fitting label for this sweetly whimsical property tucked well up above Glanmire’s East Cliff Road.

There’s a good chance that you won’t spot it from the road below, but if you do, the impression is almost of a treehouse nestled high in a leafy canopy, except far more robust and designed for a great deal more than kids’ play.

It nearly had a name change, to Fairy Tree Cottage, when the current owner bought it 20 or so years ago, but she left well alone after spotting an old door on the property with a bumblebee carved into it. Either name works well. The tiered 0.3 acres that the cottage sits on sort of tallies with school syllabus imagery of bee-loud glades but you could imagine too communities of little folk winging their way around the hellebores, bluebells, foxgloves, ferns, camellias, clematis, roses, rhododendrons and different varieties of trees that grow with great abandon around this very private site, which, up until a few years ago, was laid out very carefully, with little pathways through that leafy glade.

The overgrowth needs a good shearing now, but the fundamentals are there for a buyer with moxie and an appreciation of the importance of biodiversity. 

The house will require energy too but it holds plenty of promise. It’s a unique property, that feels quite antique, but actually dates to around 1945. The owner says that “at one point, the site was surrounded by a dairy farm, owned by the Cremin family”, who subsequently sold out to developer Michael O’Flynn, who built the Ballinglanna estate, up the hill from Bumblebee Cottage.

 She believes her own home was “part of the old fruit farm of Eastcliffe House”, one of a pair of three-storey homes just down the road, that date to the early 1800s, rather grand houses, and now the location of Glanmire Chiropractic Clinic, near the AIB bank.

The owner has photos of her home when she lived there on a more permanent basis – she spent the covid years in Rome and also has a place in Kenmare. The gardens at that time were an oasis of cultivated wildness. 

Greenhouse area when the owner was still at home

It’s still an oasis, just less cultivated. 

Greenhouse area now

A greenhouse (remains in place) produced veg for the kitchen table. A terrace, also still in place, runs right along the front of the house, high above the woodland garden. The old photos show a swing chair and a picnic table and benches on the terrace and lots of colourful growth.

Terrace Bumblebee when the owner was based there

 They were taken in sunlight and the terrace remains sunlit, west-facing, ideal in the evening for sitting out, removed from the road below, with a view down over the nearby Glashaboy River.

The owner didn’t make many changes other than putting a roof on the garage which is essentially under the garden, at road level. You can drive two cars right in. 

Into garage area

A handyman fitted a window into a little red lean-to outhouse, which looks out on the garden and terrace. 

Lean-to

More recently, the bathroom was upgraded. The kitchen is right at the heart of the house, and beyond it, a living room has a redbrick chimney breast. 

Kitchen/dining

Living room

There’s a decent size double bedroom beyond the living room and a much smaller added-on bedroom to the rear, which could be a home office.

Main bedroom

Prospective buyers of Bumblebee Cottage will be taking on something of a project. Both house and garden need work, but old photos show how well it scrubs up. The site is steep, with deep steps and a narrow path up from the road below, and much lovely growth.

 It’s entered via the kind of door you see in fairy stories, set into a tall stone wall.

“It’s been very special for me, somewhere with great privacy and freedom and steeped in nature. I used to have a hammock in the garden and no-one knew I was there,” the owner says.

Paul Fenton of Sherry FitzGerald is selling 63 sq m Bumblebee Cottage and the guide price of 220,000 for a house on one third of an acre in the heart of Glanmire village will be music to the ears of first time buyers. However additional investment will be required, not least to improve the ‘G’ energy rating.

“It’s really a home for someone who isn’t afraid of a project,” he says, adding that it’s the kind of property that could appeal to a young couple looking for a starter home.

Cork City is just 10 minutes by car from Bumblebee Cottage.

VERDICT: If you like a project, you’ll get a great buzz out of this one. The setting is sweet as nectar. Expect to be busy as a bumblebee.