Family home par excellence at €745k Ballygarvan one-off

Regular updates at Stonebrook make it a shoo-in for next owners

Ballygarvan village on doorstep of Gleann Rua's Stonebrook

Ballygarvan, Cork
€745,000
Size	219 sq m (2,360 sq ft)
Bedrooms	4 + attic
Bathrooms	4
BER	B3

WELL, there sure was demand for serviced sites back in summer 2003 — the couple who came to view this Ballygarvan setting on a June Bank Holiday Monday were given until the next day to come up with a deposit, as there were hordes behind them also looking to buy.

Stonebrook aka 38 Gleann Rua

And, the pressure put on Alex and Elaine O’Regan to pony up wasn’t fabricated: the selling agent came back to them a day or two after they paid up to say they’ve be given back an extra €10,000 to not sign the contact as another person really, really, really wanted it too.

They stuck to their guns at Stonebrook, glad ever since that they did, getting planning on their third attempt for this one-off within a very successful 2000s Bride View Developments’ Gleann Rua.

They’d wanted a stone exterior feature and eventually got it, in a full height window bay, going on to build via direct labour, with child No 2, Cillian, arriving just as the work finished, joining sister Ellen who was a site-visiting toddler during the patient build from the O’Regan’s first home in Ballea Carrigaline.

Where does time go? The ‘youngsters’ are now in their twenties, one post-college and just joined the work force, the other’s in year three training to be an electrician. Parents Elaine and Alex haven’t sat around either: inveterate house improvers, they’ve a steady stream of extra, ‘above and beyond’ works done ever since to bring it Stonebrook aka 38 Gleann Rua to this current standard.

Now that it’s updated on just about every front, internally and externally, they are looking to move back towards Cork city’s suburbs for their next ‘nest-emptying’ life chapter, with energy to spare whilst admitting they’ll really miss the community that grew around them, and where their family was reared, schooled and engaged in sports.

Selling Stonebrook/No 38 in city-adjacent Ballygarvan is agent Jeremy Murphy, who says he was almost stopped in his tracks once he arrived for a first impression: he’s now listed it at €745,000 and that’s for a walk-in order, constantly enhanced 2,360 sq ft four bed detached home with two attic level rooms with excellent permanent stair access. It’s complete with a just re-landscaped back garden complete with quality build home office/garden room/bar and games room ready to lead the home owners up the garden path.

Raise the bar at Stonebrook

Jeremy Murphy’s sales listing gives dates of the more recent works carried out here (the vendors have two bulging folders of details, receipts etc!) The stone patio and landscaping came in 2022, the same year as the garden room/bar, which is fully insulated, externally clad and on a concrete base.

Internally a smart home Hive heating system came in 2020, the same year the kitchen was retiled, preceded by the wood-burning stove in the living room in 2015, with a relined flue following in 2024.

The ash kitchen has b

een professionally repainted, while the oak stairs got a new carpet in 2022, with new blinds throughout coming in ’23 “giving a fresh, uniform look to every room.” Utility and guest WC were tacked on in 2020, and the main bedroom’s en suite (one of two) was redone as recently as 2025.

Anyone else out there feeling lazy by comparison?

Wait on: the B2 rated adaptable home with its Kealkil stone flanked bays and those up-top attic room extras also has an EV charging point, app controlled CCTV, full alarm, a Solarman app-controlled eight-panel PV solar system and a new front door, controlled by hand and key for older folk’s peace of mind.

Rooms wise, as well as the stove-warmed living room with bay window, another reception room, an oak-floored lounge, has a sunken floor area and high ceilings; there’s the upgraded kitchen with granite tops and hand- painted units; a sun room is off, and upstairs the main en suite bedroom has a bay with three windows.

It’s probably no surprise to hear Elaine and Alex are fans of TV home makeover shows: Elaine says it’s in her blood as her own mother “has had more kitchens fitted than most people ever have had homes, and my sisters are the same.”

Auctioneer Jeremy Murphy says he expects local trade-up and trade-in interest from around Ballygarvan and Carrigaline, adding that Gleann Rua’s Stonebrook has that rare balance of detached one-off home by a family-friendly development, in a village setting with services, GAA club and school all within a few minutes’ walk of the new (well, 2020) front door.

Close to hand is Cork Airport and Business Park, there’s a bus service (the 225), the city’s four miles away and roads passing lead towards Carrigaline, Kinsale, and on to south and west Cork.

VERDICT: reluctantly departing co-owner Elaine was a stalwart of the community association and was key in getting traffic calming measures and new signage for Ballygarvan. As new signs were going up, she spotted the old Baile Garbhain/Ballygarvan sign,  heading into a metal recycling skip.

Garden joys at Stonebrook

She saved it, planted it in the garden’s perimeter landscaping, cherished it....but, hands-off, it’s going to town with the O’Regans when they move. To the vendors go the spoils….