Simple Simon's Cove €345k cottage is as cute as it gets

West Cork's Cove Cottage, by rarely visited Simon’s Cove, is set to stir hearts

I see the sea: Simon's Cove can be glimpsed from Cove Cottage: Agent Mark Kelly of Hodnett Forde guides at €345,000

Simon's Cove, Clonakilty,  West Cork
€345,000
Size	117 sq m (1,250 sq ft)
Bedrooms	2
Bathrooms	2
BER	F

YOU get the sea, and privacy, as well as an abundance of charm and two acres with grazing at this West Cork cottage, at largely unvisited Simon’s Cove near Clonakilty.

A calm and serene evening at Simon's Cove near Clonakilty. Pic: Mike Brown

The cove, in two distinct sections and with a flat bed of dark shale rock about a kilometre east of Inchydoney beach as the gulls fly, is a treasure, reached down along a small single track road — almost a lane, really — with one of the last few houses, Cove Cottage, set just before reaching the water now for sale.

Visited on one of the finest days of the summer (so far: fingers crossed for more), as first viewers started to arrive at 15-minute intervals, it would be an almost impossible place to resist from first impressions, for any and all with even the slightest romantic streak in them, and a wish to live within spitting and listening distance of the Atlantic ocean.

Happy landings

Already under offer at its €345,000 AMV, agent Mark Kelly of Hodnett Forde acknowledges “a magical sensation.” Indeed, it bursts with postcard-perfect vignettes redolent of older, gentler days. Heck, it’s even got a commissioned painting of two donkeys, Dora Bell (adorable?) and Emily who used to graze this ground, lovingly displayed on a wall next to the large hearth with cosying stove.

Cove Cottage comes on two coastal acres

The vignettes include an orchard and leafy bowers; sea glimpses to winsome Simon’s Cove from its upstairs windows; its old-fashioned meadow, thick whitewashed walls; its old Tintawn stair carpet that’s seen decades of foot treads, worn smooth; tiny shed and red, part-galvanised roof of a lofted workshop, wherein lurks two large glass containers, taped up and sealed as if containing something radioactive. In fact, they hold sloe-infused poitin, there for years, as likely to cure you as to kill you.

Shed your possessions

They are there from the years of residency of previous owners, UK-based doctors Sasha and Molly Kaufmann, for whom this was a cherished holiday home and West Cork retreat from busy lives.

Some of the back-story is given by vendor and local resident Eamonn O’Grady, a Skibbereen native who first bought it in the 1970s and who later, after he built a bungalow nearby, had rented it out to the Kaufmanns for their holidays in Ireland.

They clearly loved it. They became friends with neighbour Eamonn, who maintained it on their behalf, and later he sold it to them.

Pastures new? Cottage is on two acres

Time marched on, and when they decided to sell, he bought it back from them, and of late it has been lived in by his daughter Kerrie.

She’s working in Cork and, after decades of grass cutting and care for this cottage as well as at his own home, Eamonn has decided to sell it on after nearly half a century of on and off again ownerships.

In lots of ways it has stayed true to the Kaufmanns’ tenure here, even down to the books on shelves and paintings and posters on the walls. There’s a classic West Cork scene, a landscape by the late Scottish-born painter William Crozier, a poster for a retrospective exhibition in 1991 at the Crawford Gallery in Cork City and a painting by Cork artist Ann Marie McCarthy of the donkey duo, Emily and Dora Belle.

Asses roar: spot the painting of donkeys Dora Belle and Emily, left of the fireplace?

While it’s a timepiece in some respects, in others it’s not. Sure, it has an F BER, largely thanks to old stone walls with little insulation - for now. But it has a large Stanley stove in a wide original hearth with old bellows to the side (no longer functional) and it has oil-fired central heating plus electric.

Crying out to be opened up just a tiny bit more......

It warms up, for sure, and it has a quite modern, simple kitchen in a small front annex off the living room, and has two bathrooms, one at either level, the lower one with a bath, the upper one near the two charming, wood-clad bedrooms and large landing/home-office has a shower.

It’s all so simply presented, neat and tidy, with a feature porthole opening next to a slight archway linking a dining section to the main living room, each double aspect (the house is effectively one room deep).

Slender double-doors open from the dining end to a sheltered, south-facing sloping garden, crying out for a patio here, or a lean-to sun room as a minimum, with a larger opening span inserted in the walls?.

At the other end, there’s scope aplenty at the attached shed/workshop under the galvanised roof, reached by the bathroom corridor.

Even within its stout, standing stone walls there’s a quite sizeable room-in waiting here, indeed, crying out for it, to be created.

Workshop is a room in waiting

The access to that upper level is external, at the far gable end via the gardens, but putting in an internal stairs would be easy-peasy (the floor between the levels is old Ford boxes, says vendor Eamonn, who recalls putting in the three workshop windows with the Kaufmanns many years back).

This ‘half’ might go higher? The floors could be dug down and insulated and walls tanked and insulated? Go double height with rooflights or a lantern light on the ridge? Mezzanine?

As beguiling as the house is in its own right, the gardens are a match for it. Just about kept in check, ideal for those who value biodiversity, and might want to do a bit of planting, horticulture, or horse, donkey or sheep keeping.

Over half of the two acres Cove Cottage comes with is in an irregular-shaped field running above the cul de sac access road, but is unlikely to ever have separate site value as it’s steep and hard to get into from the road.

But, it could take a cabin, pod or sheds linked to the cottage’s owners and accessed by Cove Cottage’s own steep entry point?

Lots of options anyway, for sure and none of them immediately pressing. Next owners could simply walk in and do their own thing, themselves, at their own pace.

Then, others with bigger budgets and grander designs might decide to go bigger, no matter what the cost.

Simon's Cove Clonakilty

The lure for many will be the proximity to Simon’s Cove, a five minute stroll past a stand of pine trees where there is a contemporary home almost dipping its feet in the sea on one side and two tiny, winsome cottages in a wooded dell, almost impossibly beautiful.

Go back up the road and Clonakilty is a ten minute or so drive west via a scenic spin past South Ring and facing Inchydoney Island.

Other coves include Sheeps Cove, while Ballinglanna, Broadstrand and Dunworley lie to the east towards Courtmacsherry in fertile West Cork farmland and undulating hills.

VERDICT: You can do as much as you want (subject to planning) or as little as you like, at almost impossibly cute Cove Cottage. Bring your togs, and a robotic lawnmower, or a donkey or two….because vendor Eamonn has had more than enough garden care at this stage...