Plain sailing in Cork's well-got Waterfall for €975,000

After more than two decades, No 38 Heatherfield is bigger and better than ever

38 Heatherfield Ballymaw. Pictures : Ryan Lynch

Heatherfield, Waterfall, Cork
€975,000
Size	235sq m (2,530sq ft)
Bedrooms	5
Bathrooms	4
BER	B2

The reasoning behind the decision to up sticks and quit the family home after 23 years is writ large at No 38 Heatherfield: It’s down to an intergenerational love of sailing, and of the sea.

That’s abundantly evidenced by the large number of marine themed and personal photographs and paintings on the walls, the array of lifejackets and waterproofs in the laundry/boot room, the sailing gear stored in the garage and gym, as well as numerous, lovingly crafted model boats displayed in pride of place.

Having really served its purpose as an accommodating family home, and with gardens now super mature with an array of acers, sheltering pergola, and expanded into a highly useful garage upgrade/gym and laundry link, No 38 is a fresh to market, early summer 2025 offer, guided at €975,000 by Frank V Murphy & Co auctioneers as the occupiers prepare to decamp to the waters around Cork harbour for their next buoyant life chapter.

The Price Register shows a dozen resales in Heatherfield since 2010, more or less at the pace of one and sometimes two in the one year; prices have been pretty much back on the steady ascendant from the €500k mark around to the most recent sale of No 31 Heatherfield Avenue, tipping over the €1m threshold once more, as one or two had ‘back in the boom’. No 31 closed at €1.05m in late 2024, having guided at €850,000 in September on its launch.

Following hot on 31’s heels, No 38 has been the one family’s home since first built back in the early 2000s by Fleming Construction, when 60 or so of these well-sized, detached steel-framed family homes came to a hungry trade-up market, just west of Cork City’s western suburbs.

Well, the suburbs are coming all the closer to this Ballymaw, Waterfall, scheme now, with the renewed march of construction inching its way out Waterfall way from Bishopstown and near Marymount, with 275 houses and apartments being delivered at Ardrostig in an ongoing scheme called Waterfall Heights — the largest in the district in decades.

This development, as well as ongoing home building on a smaller scale, is shrinking the distance between Bishopstown and Waterfall village, where Heatherfield’s 60 or so broadly similar detacheds have been followed by over 40 more detacheds, in various more contemporary styles in an adjacent scheme called Earls Well.

Earls Well was also initiated by Fleming Construction, but after they went into liquidation/receivership in 2010, Nama appointed a contractor back in 2016 to continue the scheme, which has just now been finished out by O’Callaghan Properties, who took it on in 2018.

The Price Register shows 28 Earls Well sales since 2016, with three of the last five sales of new-builds here selling for over €1m, led by No 42 Earls Well fetching €1.029m this time last year (2024 also saw €1m-plus sales of new builds in the likes of Orchard Road and the Model Farm Road in the western suburbs, as well as at Hettyfield in Douglas).

So, there’s quite a likelihood that No 38 Heatherfield will break the €1m price threshold too, given the proven level of demand for well-located, walk-in order family homes across Cork City, much of it driven by medics, given proximity in this case to the likes of Marymount, CUH/CUMH, and, to a lesser extent, the Bon Secours and Mercy hospitals.

Indeed, medics were to the fore in Heatherfield’s first days of sales, and now agent Dennis Guerin, with Chloe Reidy, expect, doctors to once more feature in calls for viewings and, later, in bidding.

The five-bed, two en suite No 38 has been very well kept and fully utilised, extended to the side some years ago with a large link off the kitchen side to the enlarged garage, currently part-set up as a model maker’s engineering workshop, complete with lathes but suitable for any home hobbyist or storage uses, plus sports gym, and all backed up by the superb and commodious laundry/utility/pantry, all in addition to the main and original house floorplan.

This includes a large reception room with rosewood display shelving, low-level gas fire and hearth and TV recess, and, across the wide central hall, a home office/study, extensively shelved.

Behind is the vast, full-width kitchen/ dining room, with chunky granite topped units, next to a sunken/ split level family room, both with French door access to a part-sheltered patio seating area, with generous bay by the dining section, with clematis draped around a large pergola, with a low brick wall and Indian sandstone paving.

The fully enclosed, substantial back garden faces south and shows the fruits of professional landscaping 20 years ago, with mature acers, wedding cake tree, and many other trees and shrubs, with extensive outdoor lighting, and side storage for bikes, bins, and more.

VERDICT: It took a call to the sea to get this family to weigh anchor from well-rooted No 38.