Cork's property plateau? Try €725k Audley Place on Patrick's Hill for attitude and altitude

Victorian home 1 Lansdowne Terrace has tip-top lofty views of Cork city from its St Patrick’s Hill perch, writes Tommy Barker

Nothing added but time: the view from 1 Landsdowne Terrace still resembles the classic John Butts' 'View of Cork from Audley Place' painting done in 1750

St Patrick's Hill, Cork City
€725,000
Size	218 sq m (2,300 sq ft)
Bedrooms	4
Bathrooms	4
BER	D1

HOME hunters looking for an urban Cork pad, in walk-in order and with the city at its feet, need look only to look upwards — to the top of St Patrick’s Hill.

Inside of No 1: the view beckon, and the lofty house is tip-top too

Up for sale in great health, and promising a healthy aerobic workout to its occupants, is the fine fettle Victorian end of terrace home 1 Lansdowne Terrace, by Audley Place, a vertiginous haul up from the city centre, St Patrick’s Bridge, and buzzing MacCurtain Street: it’s a home that has seen it all, and sees it all.

No 1 alright: agent Fiona Waldron guides this city smasher at €725,000

Once called West View, Lansdowne Terrace (also spelled Landsdowne) does indeed face due west from its St Patrick’s Hill perch, above Bells Field and is pretty much where the iconic 18th century panoramic painting ‘View of Cork’ by artist (and sometimes forger) John Butts was painted, showing St Anne’s Steeple at Shandon, northside hills and valleys, the city waterways and the old Custom House, now the Crawford Art Gallery where the ‘View of Cork’ now is secured.

Butts out..

The family at No 1 love that view: “We don’t go anywhere on New Year’s Eve, that’s when it’s best of all with fireworks everywhere,” they say and have entertained friends and family on that electric, auspicious night, when the city and skies above are alive with light, noise, and high hopes for the year ahead.

Just as well they don’t have a scaredy-cat dog....

The young family bought here as a home for life in 2017 (No 1 previously featured in these pages), having previously lived an urban life in Dublin and have their own roots in Coachford (him) and Tipperary/Wexford (her).

They’ve since become a family of five, a son in the middle of an older and a young sister; they go to school locally, but when the chance came to get a site via family connections back in Coachford they couldn’t resist the chance to be closer to family supports: they still aim to keep the primary school connection going for a sort of ‘reverse commute’.

Charged with the sale on their behalf is agent Fiona Waldron of Auctioneera, who guides the three-storey period home at €725,000: going on what’s being paid for similar vintage (and usually smaller) homes in and around St Luke’s Cross, it will make it and a bit more.

The Price Register shows No 1 making €575,000 back in 2017, and that was after a previous sale in pre-Register days in 2007 (market peak, ouch) for the high €600,000s, when it was bought in a more original state by a couple who did the first, and most major, upgrades, likely to have cost several hundred thousand euro to achieve.

Those owners (then with two daughters) put it on the market in 2012 when jobs in California beckoned, and they subsequently took it back and put it up to rent for the next few years before selling in ’17.

Top spec

Today’s occupants loved the fact it had already been done to a high standard when they got to see it, and having been outbid a few times on other properties, even in that relatively quieter market than now, they didn’t hesitate t pay the asking price.

The first tranche of work saw the ground floor rooms opened front to back with a steel RSJ put in. The new kitchen was made by HomeGrown Kitchens, the joinery was done by craftsman Brian Coffey who did new sash windows, repaired old sashes, and added the glazed hardwood sun room to the back of the kitchen, while original pine doors and shutters were stripped back and waxed.

Bathrooms too had been upgraded, the place was replumbed and rewired with brushed steel sockets and switches and the ground level had a Jura stone floor installed, heated underfoot.

All costly work, for sure and not to be taken on too lightly in the current build environment, what with skills shortages and hiked up materials costs — something the vendors here note ruefully as they reckon the cost of the direct labour in their new home in Coachford is 50% higher than what friends of theirs were paying only a few years ago.

Ouch again.

Since they bought, the family here have put their own mark on the home, adding things like panelling in the hall, stairs, and landing for a classic look that might well have been here for ever, but is a recent enhancement, and they also engaged joiner Brian Cafferkey of build firm ProHome, who they highly rate, for built-ins/display units.

They also provided simple but highly effective secondary double glazing on the house’s front one-over-one sash windows, with easily demountable slim glazing done by Galway-based firm Window Seal Systems in Claregalway, saying it’s simple to install, plus highly effective in terms of both heat retention/draught-proofing and sound reduction too.

No 1 is a big and adaptable home, surprisingly so (several censuses from the early 1900s show domestic staff living and working here) and the family live top and bottom day-to-day, with a front first floor drawing room on a favourite par with the 35’ front to back ground floor one, using the three first floor bedrooms. They take advantage of the Rent-A-Room scheme to provide accommodation for a tenant in the mid-level en suite back bedroom.

Huge integrity from top to bottom

The previous owners added useful return levels to the back for bathrooms, matching with old brick and stone and also got a garden room/storage space.

The builder who carried out first overhaul back in the 2000s was a Tim O’Donoghue from Killarney, who worked on the end terrace/three-storey No 1 for a six month period. He was lucky to get rear access granted by the Department of Defence who own the fields behind by ‘Barracktown’ facing CBC rugby and sport grounds and Collins Barracks.

THE vendors reckon there’s deeper army links, as the property is held on a 500-year lease linked to the barracks/Department of Defence. The terrace of four (originally West View as it was first ) was built in two sections, the first pairing on the left in the 1820s and the second duo on the right in the 1850s: the couple since came across a photograph from across the valley to Audley Place in 1856 showing two built (Nos 3 & 4) and two more (Nos 1 & 2) under construction 30 years on.

Young off-enders: Audley Place in 1856 with Landsdowne Terrace Mk 2  under construction

First viewings at the immaculately presented No 1 started in recent days and it’s immediately impressive from the gate on Audley Place and side lawn and garden to the back of the enclosed courtyard.

The Irish Examiner visited on Friday last, trotting (hem…) up the steep hill from vibrant MacCurtain Street on a sunny day when St Patrick’s Hill seemed suitably en fete, with chillaxed students from the likes of St Angelas, CBC, Hewitt, Bruce, and other spots picking up and celebrating Leaving Cert results, with uniforms now a thing of the past and a good night planned — top of the world festivities, fireworks or not.

VERDICT: A city stunner in great shape after two rounds of appreciative and caring owners over the past 20 years