Ballincurrig House in Cork's Douglas is a rarity - an intact Georgian home hiding out in the 'burbs

Hideaway house has maintained huge authenticity

Three-bay Ballincurrig House dates to the 1820s. Cohalan Downing guide the period home at €1.25m

South Douglas Road, Cork City
€1.25 million
Size	301 sqm (3,200 sq ft)
Bedrooms	5
Bathrooms	3
BER	E1

 

BALLINCURRIG covers a lot of diverse properties in Douglas, Cork, from the 1950s Ballincurrig Park housing estate in a cul de sac loop; to a pair of ornamental cast iron gates replete with shamrock at the entrance to former stables, now mews houses; to Ballincurrig Villa, and Ballincurrig House.

Ballincurrig townland Douglas

Ballincurrig also crops up in the address of a number of one-off houses in Douglas, including here, at Ballincurrig House itself, and its red-brick gate lodge behind electric access gates, all out of sight on the South Douglas Road.

A true Georgian era home with roots put at 1820, Ballincurrig House must be one of a very small number of authentic, remaining period homes in the stretch between Douglas Village and Cork City. When built 200 years ago, it was in pure countryside, a far cry from what’s now wall-to-wall 21st century suburbia….notions of a vast array of later 19th, 20th and now 21st century mass housing, shopping centres, and cafes must have been the very last thing on its original builders and family owners’ minds.

Georgian grace

This elegant and quite simple Georgian home would have followed the likes of Douglas’s far grander Maryborough House (1730s) and Vernon Mount (1790s) in Grange, with other homes of the 19th century around Douglas including at Eglantine, Endsleigh Knockrea House, and Tramore House, with the latter two dating also to the 1820s.

Most of the era are gone, or vastly altered, or have lent their rich names to housing estates that got build on their lands. Others, like Vernon Mount, stand (or fall?) as a crime of neglect after arson claimed it a decade ago. This is all to the point that true, original older Georgian homes in and around the southside suburb are rare birds indeed.

Hideaway

As Ballincurrig House, out of sight and private on a 0.8 of an acre off the South Douglas Road, comes to market, with a €1.25m guide price, it has value on lots, and lots, of fronts. It’s a rare home type, has huge retained integrity and architectural delights, and is in a very strong location. It has more than 3,000 sq ft, over two-three main internal levels, is in good physical shape, entirely habitable but in need of TLC and sensitive ‘modernising’, and exudes its own charm too, ready to be enhanced.

Happy half landings

It has been the private home of a member of a Cork business family, primarily in the hospitality sector, and has been maintained over their decades of ownership, while various ‘new’ developments and infill schemes crept in around it, such as Skehanore, Cuasnog and Ashdene, Glencurrig, and even the ‘new’ Nemo Rangers GAA pitches. It’s set more directly to the south of a Texaco station and semi-detached homes at Briarville on the back of South Douglas Road: yet, given the maturity of the trees ringing its c 0.8 of grounds, you’d never know they were there, or vice versa or, even where exactly you are.

Selling agents Malcolm Tyrrell and Brian Olden of Cohalan Downing are set to start viewings. Mr Tyrrell says: “There have been so few sales of proper detached Georgian Cork city and suburban homes in recent years, this should be seen for what it is, a prize: it’s a wonderful 19th century period home with charm and character, with very many of the original features including cornicing, ceiling roses, fireplaces, stained glass, sash windows and the like all intact.”

Quietly distinguished (and not too much larger than many modern Douglas area and Tiger times’ era detacheds) Ballincurrig House is three-bay, with hipped slate roof and deep eaves, with porch with limestone hearth stone, timber sash windows rendered façade and front façade windows unusually decorated with stucco lion’s heads.

Internally it has central hall carpeted and painted a deep red with that colour carrying up over half levels to the top of the house, with typically high ceilings with decorative plasterwork, and formal reception rooms left and right, both double aspect with good chimney pieces, while behind is a dining room and utility, with kitchen annexe off to one side.

One of the five bedrooms

There are up to five bedrooms of varying sizes (two are double aspect, with bathrooms, over the next upper levels/off half landings, with elegant staircase with slender spindles and polished woof handrails connecting all the levels. Despite its venerable age, Ballincurrig House is not a protected structure, has an E1 BER, central heating and security alarm, with mature grounds and a side lawn big enough for a tennis court.

VERDICT: The Property Price Register shows c 50 €1m+ sales with a Douglas Cork address: this year has seen several houses in the locale offered at €1m-€2m+ price tags, are under offer or sale agreed at this sort of level. Ballincurrig House is about to join that burgeoning number, with a bright future ahead of it too.