West Cork's Lobster Cottage isn't just for the upper crustacean
Lobster Cottage is by The League/spit in Castlehaven harbour. Agent Maeve McCarthy guides at €695,000
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Raheen, Union Hall, West Cork |
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€695,000 |
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Size |
165 sq m (1,800 sq ft) |
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Bedrooms |
3 |
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Bathrooms |
3 |
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BER |
D2 |
YOU know you are right by the sea at the charmingly-titled Lobster Cottage – it’s right in front of you, to smell, to see and to hear, with sounds ranging from water lapping, boat rigging snapping and seagulls screeching, squawking and dropping mussel shells from a height to get at the meat inside the shells.
West Cork’s Lobster Cottage is set at Raheen, Reen, just a road’s width away from the water, right by the protruding spit jutting into the safety of Castlehaven.
It's just a few hundred metres from Reen pier and slipway where plump mussel shells are strewn about by foraging seagulls who've had their fill from the ocean: we’re not talking cheeky urban gulls scrounging from municipal rubbish bins, black bags and snacking citizens in our cities. Here, they are right at home.
There’s an increasing rare, unspoiled character to Castlehaven harbour, perhaps down to the natural topography with wooded hills, rocky promontories, angled coves and backwaters, watched over by old castle remains such as the much-photographed Raheen Castle, still standing in the harbour’s most sentinel setting...despite having been shelled by Oliver Cromwell in 1649.
The Price Register shows the sale last year of a well renovated and old farmhouse and land at Raheen Castle, selling last year for €1.775 million: it might have even made more as the register only records property values on an acre, and this had more land.
Now, the selling agent of Raheen Castle, Maeve McCarthy based in Skibbereen, is back again at Raheen, only this time her offer, Lobster Cottage, is more than €1 million ‘cheaper’ than the house an castle up the road: she guides Lobster Cottage at €695,000.
Values vary locally here: Ms McCarthy also sold the upgraded Windswept Cottage at Reen, on a height over the water last year for €1.080m (it featured here last year) and right now there are at least two other offers locally, Evergreens, a three-bed stone-faced bungalow looking out to Castletownshend with a €695,000 AMV which went for sale last June, with Sherry FitzGerald O’Neill, and Fair View, a much larger home exactly angled to also make the very best views over water to the village, Castletownshend Castle and St Barahane’s Church over the water. Fair View launched after Christmas with a €880,000 AMV via agent Michael McKenna, expected to get stronger viewings now that summer’s in the air.
The timing of Lobster Cottage coming to market is spot-on: there’s a pick-up in the weather, Easter will lure families to the seaside, and those into boats and waterborne activity are getting craft ready for launching, for sailing, voyaging and fishing.
Lobster Cottage is across the road from the Raheen/Reen’s distinguishing feature, the spit formed to protect the innermost harbour reaches under Raheen Castle, with boats dotted about and pulled up past the highwater mark, in varying states of repair, or disrepair.
It’s popular with dinghy and small boat sailors, and with kayakers including those getting out on the water with Jim Kennedy’s Atlantic Sea Kayaking, on the go since 1995 and now in second generation family hands. Many others use it in a democratic sort of way, and it’s also a base for Cork Whale Watch. In more recent years, it’s got its own coffee and cake offer, The Coffee Cup, in a converted horsebox.
The Coffee Cup has outdoor seating and tables fashioned from brightly painted large timber cable reels, giving sit-down views out the length of Castlehaven harbour to the Stags rocks – known far and wide for their treacherous nature, as the crew of the ore carrier the Kowloon Bridge found to their cost in 1986 when it reefed and foundered off Castlehaven.
Back at Raheen, all’s milder, safer and little wonder that estate agent Maeve McCarthy says Lobster Cottage “enjoys an idyllic setting on the tranquil inner reaches of Castlehaven harbour, boasting breathtaking views across the water to Rineen Woods and the charming Victorian village of Castletownshend.”
She puts that village, with its period homes clinging mollusc-like to the precipitously steep hill down to the sea and its own pier as about a 15 minute spin by car but adds “the journey can be delightfully shortened, to mere minutes by taking a leisurely punt or kayak across the sheltered harbour mouth, highlighting the unique maritime charm and ease of access that define this property.”
Largely upgraded and given its current character back around the 1990s by owners who live in the UK, Lobster Cottage has c 165 sq m or 1,800 sq ft inside its ‘shell,’ with a largely open plan ground floor, with linked sitting and dining area with corner windows for water views plus tall, feature wood-burning stove, with a country-style kitchen under a high pitched ceiling, and with painted units, towards the back.
There’s also a ground floor bedroom with en suite bathroom “ideal for accessible living,’ plus guest bathroom, while upstairs are two more bedrooms, one used as study and it links to an upper level sunroom/conservatory, with screening blinds for the glass ceiling, with outdoors steps down to the gardens.
Likely to have originally have been a ‘two-up, two-down’, Lobster Cottage pushed out its ground floor plan and extended the roof profile over the new wings, overseen at the time by local designer Donal Hoare in Skibbereen, and it retains some older features such as painted rough stone walls, while a number of walls, floors and furniture are in strong colours, greens and blues, perhaps reflecting the wider marine ambience.
Lobster Cottage has a stove plus electric heating, gets a D1 BER, is in good overall condition but in new hands is likely to get decorative and energy-efficiency update, while the grounds run to about 0.6 of an acre in all, well planted with trees and shrubs for bird life, with a stone-ringed and stone flagged sunken terrace/patio.
VERDICT: Worth getting your claws on.
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