The €1.25m West Cork villa: a rare case where 'looking 200 years old' is the ultimate compliment

They can still build them like they used to... as this 20-year-old West Cork Georgian gem proves

Fri, 06 Mar, 2026 - 08:15

Tommy Barker

Enniskeane, West Cork
€1.25m
Size	381sq m (4,101 sq ft)
Bedrooms	5
Bathrooms	6
BER	C2

It would be easy to think there’s a misprint in the stated age of this hideaway West Cork Regency villa — it’s put at a mere 20 years old but looks to be 200 years of age, albeit immaculately preserved.

Privately set near Ahiohill, between Clonakilty and Bandon, and about 45 minutes from Cork City and the airport, Knockmacool Lodge dates to just 2005, built to a faithful classical template by a couple who had lived in, and shivered in, genuine period properties before deciding to build from scratch. They delivered to an exceptional standard, integrating architectural salvage and materials in their purpose and process.

They sold the utterly convincingly detailed ‘lodge’ after about a decade to its current owners, a US-based couple with long Irish family roots on both sides who fell for Knockmacool (the townland name is genuine!) on the spot. As kindred spirits, it again was a perfect fit for the next decade as they straddled the Atlantic in their active retirement years.

Now, having taken the utterly convincing Georgian villa gem to an even higher standard, it’s time for the owners to return full-time to the US, where they have already started work on a rebuild in New Jersey. They previously have lived in, and worked on, as many as 10 homes, including in Palm Beach, Florida, and in Jamaica — and admit, with visible regret, that Knockmacool Lodge has been their favourite.

To reverse the usual laudatory expression, this 4,100 sq ft villa home is 'as good as old', with all of the charms and aura of architectural aplomb, graceful proportions, and exquisite craftsmanship but has 21st-century creature comforts, with five en suite bedrooms, underfloor heating fed by a wood pellet burner, a mid-1900s rebuilt Aga in the kitchen, solar panels, Starlink satellite internet connectivity, and a C2 BER — it would be higher except for highly effective open fires in immaculate chimneypieces with polished brass trim.

There’s a coincidental pleasing symmetry of architectural salvage in the ‘doors of perception’ at this split-level villa on its highly landscaped tree and stream-fringed 2.6 acres. First impressions of Georgian grace are cemented by the five-bay villa’s bow ends and portico, with Doric columns and triangular pediment.

That salvaged statement entrance piece in sandstone was done day-one by the lodge’s builders. Since, it has been matched by an ornate, internal arched doorway with columns, leaded glass, and fanlight, also with a very long pedigree.

The doorcase came via a circuitous route thanks to the labours of the diligent duo, who tell of its late 1700s origins in Newport, Rhode Island; how it was relocated to a rebuild in the 1830s in Connecticut; moving several more times; was sold as part of a house sale but bought back by this couple when they heard that their former home’s buyers had sold it to a junk yard.

Finally, the well-travelled doorcase seems to have found an appropriately rightful resting space in West Cork’s Knockmacool.

This beauty links the large, central entrance hallway to a formal but restful reception room on the left, with elaborate ornated ceiling plasterwork and central rose with delicate swags overhead in the high-ceilinged hall, just the first of the many upgrades done here by the current owners, who sing the praises of city-based specialists Capital Mouldings.

The twin reception rooms, left and right, have open fires for wood and turf, with marbling decorative work done on the fireplaces by paint specialist Geraldine O’Riordan, whose handiwork and frescoes are in a number of Irish period properties. (Both Geraldine and the owners share a love of Georgian style, and one has even served on the board of the Irish Georgian Society during their Irish sojourn.)

While modernity thrums away in the background on all levels of this lodge, materials and décor here are pitch-perfect period, including hand-printed shamrock motif wallpaper by Leitrim-based Irish creator David Skinner, which is a copy of an original in Fota House.

Others have been sourced on both sides of the Atlantic in a variety of auction houses, and many items here were in previous family homes Stateside and jumped the Atlantic with them.

Among the more notable is an incredible, highly upholstered four-poster bed, while the couple were delighted to come across the long-established O’Mahony Interiors in nearby Enniskeane for other fabrics and finishes.

Not a penny was spared in all the work done here since 2014, in what was then only a place with a decade of its own pedigree.

The bathrooms were redone and some were reordered, while all are subtly high-end in a classical style and marbles used are muted.

The kitchen, with an array of ovens plus the vintage kerosene-fuelled Aga, was commissioned from Bandon’s Callan Kitchens, with pull-out dishwasher drawers and pull-out fridges, with further fridges in the utility room.

“We are Americans,” they say, laughing.

The kitchen has been well appreciated by the private occupants, guests, and visiting chefs and caterers.

It produced the goods on July 4, 2018, for a family clan reunion (on the Kerry side), when a marquee was put up in the gardens.

The lodge’s floor plan works for all ages, considered and formal to the front and more relaxed at the back, where the kitchen/diner/family room opens into an enlarged and fully rebuilt sunroom overlooking a formal landscaped garden, fringed by stonewalls and classically gated for framing longer views to the far end of the 2.6 acres, where a Celtic knot garden feature is a tranquil spot, planted with lavender.

Also at lower ground/garden level are an en suite guest bedroom (appreciated by one of the owner’s mother, who turns 99 this year), an office, a pantry, a laundry room, a store room, and a WC, while a door under the stairs opens to reveal a wine store.

While the slate-roofed ‘lodge’ only appears single storey to the front, it’s two-storey to the rear, with clever use of half levels, and the upper level has a generous landing with roof light, upgraded to a large, leaded oval-glazed frame, with four en suite bedrooms off, one per corner.

As their family is raised and largely living overseas, the owners smartly adapted the flow of rooms so that the main bedroom now links via a large bathroom to an en suite dressing room (it’s the bedroom with Fota shamrock wallpaper) and, combined, the wardrobe/storage space is vast.

Other bedrooms include one with gentle toile du jouy wallpaper theme, while an adult daughter’s bedroom has some of her old childhood clothes framed on the walls, including a tiny Aran jumper… clearly, the Irish-American family celebrate their heritage and roots.

Despite its tender age of 21 years this year, Knockmacool Lodge has its own deep roots too and was built on part of the grounds of the adjacent Kilcolman Rectory, almost entirely out sight behind a centuries-old treeline.

The lodge has a suitably aesthetic, lofted stone courtyard set of outbuildings, with a workshop, fuels store for the pellet boiler, storage, a bone-dry garage/gym, with a useful upgraded kitchenette and modest, well-finished overhead accommodation (the area over the main stone-faced building has a concrete floor and holds huge scope for many future uses for the new owners).

Kilcolman Rectory dates to the early 1800s, in a pastoral setting described as painterly, Constable-esque farmland, and likely was linked to Kilcolman House: that house was burned down in 1921. Probably part of the Earl of Bandon’s Estate, it was once the property of a Canon Lamb, whose family arrived in the area in the 1700s and who still own land adjacent to Knockmacool Lodge.

The rectory is on the other side of the lodge boundary’s picturesque stream, which feeds into River Bandon a kilometre or so away (Bandon is less than 10 minutes’ drive away, Clonakilty and the coast maybe 15 minutes.)

Selling this spring for the departees is Michael O’Donovan, of Savills in Cork City, who guides at €1.25m and who expects interest to come both from home and abroad, with attraction being the peace, tranquility, sheer quality (think thick walls with 14in insulation, allowing sash windows to have working shutters, etc), accessibility, and the rare distinction of being period in just about every detail bar chronological age.

“It’s a truly unique home — despite its centuries’ old appearance, it dates back to only c.2005, meaning it enjoys all the benefits of a period home without any of the drawbacks or challenges,” Mr O’Donovan observes.

Notably, one of West Cork’s stronger sales in 2025 was the €2m paid for the coastal Rathclaren House, near Kilbrittain, a virtually new home built inside the walls of a former 19th-century rectory.

Closer to Knockmacool, the adjacent Kilcolman Rectory last sold in 2016 for a recorded €960,000 (additional lands might have pushed the overall sum higher than that).

Largely by coincidence, another substantial modern home convincingly built to look older than its early 2000s construction was the B3-rated 3,500-sq ft Beechwood, right by Kilcolman, on 1.5 acres, which sold for €1.1m in 2022 to a family based in the Far East.