Live life with a-Bandon upriver of Kinsale at contemporary home with barn

Dunderrow's Dray House is all-new, has River Bandon access and has a large old stone and steel multi-purpose barn for hobbyists

Dray House at Leighmoneymore, Dunderrow was architect-designed: agents Sherry FitzGerald guide at €1.45 million

Dunderrow, Cork
€1.45 million
Size	314 sqm (3,380 sq ft)
Bedrooms	4
Bathrooms	4
BER	A3

IN ANYONE’S book, the asking price at  Dray House at €1.45m is quite a serious chunk of change: but, it’s €1m less than what the house right next door went up for sale for in April, and quite possibly closer to half of what that neighbouring home has now gone sale agreed at.

Leighmoney More House next door to Dray House went for sale in April guiding €2.45m and is sale agreed already

Dray House is upriver of Kinsale, along the River Bandon towards Innishannon and is close to Dunderrow, at a spot called Leighmoneymore — and several clues as to its popularity are hinted at in the name: think ‘money,’ then think ‘more’ for the leigh of the land.

We’re talking a five to 10-minute drive from Kinsale, or 10 minutes to Innishannon, or just two kms to the long-establshed Eli Lilly pharma plant at Dunderrow itself, near the school and pub, a major employer in the area with c 1,000 employees and, depending on projects in hand up to 500 or more contractors also on site in a multibillion dollar investment, in Kinsale since 1981.

River Bandon is just a few fields away

Leighmoneymore seems quite removed from that world of work and commerce, and Dray House came into the bigger picture back around 2017 as a one-off build, designed by Kinsale based South African architect Richard Rainey who has done many of Kinsale’s higher end homes over the past three decades.

Sitting pretty

Here, Rainey delivered an A3 BER detached family home of 3,380 sq ft on a tree-screened site of 1.68 acres (with the option of a further acre), next door to the high-end Edwardian era Leighmoney More House: it’s one of three individual houses in a cul de sac section running down to a jetty on the tidal section of the River Bandon, and has right of way access to the water.

Front view is more modest

Compared to Dray House, Leighmoney More House is larger at 4,800 sq ft, and sold in 2023 to a local family for excess €2.25m: that’s ‘just’ the sum it appeared on the Price Register at, but the buyers then bought it on up to seven acres in all, and so were likely to have spent closer to the €2.45m AMV it went back up for sale at six months ago.

Jetty set

During their brief sojourn they made a further significant investment and changes (they’d sold very well, on the waterside in Kinsale harbour): Leighmoney More House is sale agreed again already, via Sherry FitzGerald, understood to be for well over the guide.

Dray House’s sale offer is unrelated, and will have a wider viewer/buyer profile at the more, eh, ‘manageable’ €1.45m asking price quoted by Johnny O’Flynn and Scott O’Sullivan of Sherry FitzGerald.

Its grounds’ roots to older, farming days are evident in the presence of a substantial old stone barn/shed of 166 sq m or c 1,775 sq ft, useful for a range of activities, while another old barn has a lapsed planning grant for conversion to a guest cottage.

Dray horses?

Dray House has the bells and whistles of a recent A3 build, with air to water sourced underfloor heating, heat recovery system, 21 solar PV panels (drawing in up to 9kwh of power,) electric car charger, electric access gates, premium aluclad glazing, Egyptian flooring and more “the perfect choice for those seeking a wonderfully elegant A rated home with all the advantages and comforts of luury, modern day living,” says Johnny O’Flynn, adding with just two other neighbours nearby there’s “a perfect balance of community and seclusion.”

It’s a house of two faces, one giving little way on approach, by the old stone barn with its bright red doors, with small window, while a porch opens to a double height reception hall, and most rooms off then are double if not triple aspect.

There’s a large L-shaped kitchen/dining/living room, with stove in a twin-facing chimney breast plus an adjacent utility room, a separate triple aspect living room is off in one direction, a sitting room with herringbone floor and stove is on the other side, near a home office/ground floor bedroom with en suite/wet room with shower, plus guest WC and small cloakroom.

The large hall is tiled, with lots of ‘pull-out’ understair storage, while a glass balustered stairs leads up to a central landing with sit-out/sit-under space under a sloping ceiling with Veluxes and reading desk with lots of eaves storage.

This level has four bedrooms, one with en suite, plus a main family bathroom with bath and most bedrooms have built-ins and good window sizes.

The main/rear aspect is south and west, with twin gables and a middle section drawing in light and passive solar gain heat to the principal rooms, with up to five access points via sliding doors to the extensive paved/flagged patios and BBQ area, with feature side stone walls.

There’s a small lawn, lots of mature trees screen off a farm to the east, with plenty of parking/turning by the front and by the stone-walled/corrugated steel topped 1,750 sq ft workshed/store, able to take pets, hobby equipment, boats, bikes, cars, ideal for hobbyists.
VERDICT: Dray House is a lifestyle option for sure within the wider Kinsale catchment, with access to the tidal River Bandon for dipping, ducking, and diving.