Twenty-years-a-growing at this top-notch €575,000 Ladysbridge home

Volume, light and views are all to the good

Ladysbridge

Ladysbridge, Co Cork
€575,000
Size	255 sq m (2745 sq ft)
Bedrooms	4
Bathrooms	3
BER	B2

TURNKEY real estate is all the rage these days as cash-strapped, time-poor buyers pivot in droves to homes served up on a plate, with no need to call in the builders or stump up for expensive retrofits.

The Ladysbridge home featured here delivers on that ideal, but it’s been a long and winding road to get there. 

There was much back-and-forth with planners when Gavin and Linda Douglas booght the site in the early noughties, with outline permission for a bungalow.

A couple of re-designs later, they were granted permission for the substantial two-storey home that you see here and while it easily fits the billing of “turnkey”, it took years of effort to get it to the standard that it’s at.

“Nothing was done overnight, we did up rooms when we could afford to,” says Gavin.

The only quick bit in the process was the decision to buy the site.

“We had been looking around at what we could afford and a colleague of Linda’s told us about the Ladysbridge site. We fell in love with the views as soon as we saw it,” says Gavin.

Young and enthusiastic, when they bought it (aged 23 & 25) they rolled up their sleeves and using direct labour, set about building their home. An impressive 2,745 sq ft., it includes two fine reception rooms, one with a vaulted ceiling and magnificent mahogany beams.

“I came home with those beams and Linda wasn’t keen initially. But a chap came in to help shape and stain them and it worked out very well,” Gavin says. 

They sit solidly over a red-brick fireplace with a large stove and over though the beams are dark and heavy, the room is bright and airy as double doors open to a large and curvaceous rear patio, which overlooks those tremendous views of rolling green fields, with mountains in the distance.

All of the 0.84 acre grounds around the house are expertly landscaped. A friend of Gavin’s, a Dublin-based landscaper, gave them sound advice.

“I have a buddy in the trade and he gave us an outline of what to try and do,” Gavin says. The garden, literally, grew from that starting point and is now dotted with mature trees and an attractive mix of plants and shrubs. The drive is tree-lined and bordered by small Liscannor stone walls that tie in with the Liscannor stone of the house façade.

Gavin says Linda, his wife of 20 years, deserves “100% of the credit” for the house and that he just “played along”. It’s in immaculate shape, from the country-style kitchen to the large, contemporary living room which also has double doors to the patio and an insert stove.

 There’s an option for a ground-floor bedroom too which currently functions as Gavin’s very stylish home office.

Having worked painstakingly to create a “turnkey” home, the couple are moving as it’s just themselves and the dog and they’ve decided to downsize.

Ed O’Donovan of Sherry FitzGerald O’Donovan is selling their home in Ightermurragh, just a couple of minutes outside Ladysbridge village and near several East Cork beaches, as well as lovely Ballycotton.

“The house is in incredible nick and has a B2 energy rating” says Ed, due in no small part to the couple’s decision to dryline the house internally during the build.

“We put in as much insulation as we could,” Gavin says. That effort will pay off for the house buyer who will qualify for green mortgage rates.

Mr O’Donovan says there’s already “an incredible amount of interest” in the house, including “lots of buyers from Cork city and also a few from Leinster, who have greater flexibility thanks to remote working”. Almost all of those viewing are families, with the exception of “the odd couple with a budget”.

VERDICT: Proof of the pudding that slow and steady wins the race. Much time, thought and effort went into creating a bespoke home that some family will be lucky to call their own.