Dip your toes in tasty new home scheme, Hydro Manor in Tower

Prices start at €860,000 for the first five detached homes on the site of a 19th century health resort, known as St Ann's Hydro 

Hydro Manor, Tower's newest housing scheme

Tower, Cork
Prices starting from €860,000
Size	170sq m — 254sq m
Bedrooms	4 / 5
Bathrooms	4
BER	A1

BUILDING homes at a location historically associated with health and wellbeing is a nice marketing tool to have in your arsenal and so it is at Hydro Manor, a handsome new housing scheme
between Blarney and Tower, named after a fashionable spa that once attracted the good and the great of Cork.

As the site of Ireland’s first Turkish baths, frequented by the wealthy, it carries a nice cachet, albeit all that’s left of the 19th century Hydro is a couple of ruins.

St Ann's Hydro garden fete, 1938

 Still, its legacy continues in the name of the new estate, by O’Mahony Development Ltd (OMD), who are currently finishing out the first five homes on the attractive, tree-ringed site — each detached, none small, all with good ceiling heights, generous PC allowances (Celtic Interiors kitchen, if you wish), ground-floor underfloor heating, A1 BERs, four bathrooms, tasty natural stone and render external finishes, high-performance AluP passive frame windows, landscaped driveways — almost everything you could hope for in a high-spec, well-lit, comfortable home.

And that’s just the start of it.

Having bought 30 acres from landowner Michael O’Regan a few years back, OMD hope to deliver many more homes on the Hydro lands, subject to planning.

For now, the first five come to market with Suzanne Tyrrell of Cohalan Downing, who is quoting prices from €860,000 for a 170sq m (1,850sq ft) four-bed detached (there’s a larger 208sq m detached four-bed too), with expectations that the five-bed detached (254sq m) will sell for more than €1m.

Fitted kitchen at one of the new homes in Hydro Manor, Tower. Purchasers of the remaining four can choose their own fit out

VERDICT: Set in rolling countryside, yet just a 15-minute drive to Cork city, Hydro Manor, like its distinguished predecessor, is set to become a fashionable
destination too.