A million-euro milestone revisited as Hayfield House returns to Ballinlough market

Spacious Victorian-style six-bed with modern energy features and prime suburban location aims to attract Cork trade-up buyers

Hayfield House. Pictures: John Roche

Ballinlough, Cork City
€1.25 million
Size	293 sq m (3,140 sq ft)
Bedrooms	6
Bathrooms	5
BER	B1

Things seem to happen in 10-year time spans at the upmarket Hayfield House.

It was built in 2006 by a married couple, one of two sizeable replacements on the grounds of the 1900s Somerton House.

It was sold by the couple in 2016, for a reported €1m, the first house in suburban Ballinlough to hit the ‘magic million’ mark.

And, now, an exact decade later, spring 2026, Hayfield House is back up for resale by its family owners, guided this time from €1.25m.

It’s listed with Stuart O’Grady, of Sherry FitzGerald, who says his vendors are now selling to work on a project — possibly a larger one — in the Douglas area, a property they bought a number of years ago and which they are now “actioning”.

Hayfield House is strongly modelled on the late 1990s/early 2000s Cork appetite for quite timeless-looking Victorian-style homes, inspired by the success of the 60-plus house Lindville development on the Blackroad Rd and which spawned numerous copies.

Hayfield, and its over-the-wall site sibling, called Somerton (which is marginally bigger that this six-bed, 3,140 sq ft build), are among the better iterations, designed to detail by Mark Stapleton, of MJS Architects. Hayfield is wider than most Lindville detacheds, with more glazing to its south-facing rear, and it’s on a larger site, too than most Lindville homes.

MJS and his clients only got permission to build Somerton and Hayfield House after an appeal to the then-An Bord Pleanála, because the project involved the demolition of the Edwardian-rooted, 1,400 sq ft Somerton House, which by the time it came for sale in boom times, in the mid-2000s, had been sliding from view for many years, vacant and degrading.

That century-old house, at the back of the short cul-de-sac Somerton Drive, was in rag order, and it was the substantial grounds that really gave it its value.

Originally owned by the Atkins family, seed purveyors back in the day, it was later owned by the Brosnan family, who also had rare horticultural interests and planting skills, though by 2006 the propagation greenhouse was gone decrepit.

Extraordinarily, the couple who bought at that time had dug up the Somerton trove to save special plants, but while they were waiting for their planning grant, an unknown van and trailer apparently rocked up on the QT and cleared out the lot.

A swathe of mid-1900s homes, mostly semi-detacheds, had sprung up on land around Somerton House, and roads such as Somerton Park, Somerton Road, and Somerton Drive carry on the name. The original Somerton House had launched at €750,000, but it sold for over €1m, in pre-Price Register days, with a later report saying the soon-to-be knocked property had made as much as €1.2m, so the equivalent of up to €600,000 apiece per site.

This B1-rated, three-storey Hayfield House stayed as a high-end corporate rental for a period, before being put for sale in February 2016 with an €850,000 AMV.

It showed very rapidly on the Price Register by May as having fetched €881,057, but credible reports at the time put the final sum at an even €1m, and it was highlighted as Ballinlough’s first €1m sale, set, as it is, between Douglas and Ballintemple, where €1m+ values have traditionally been more commonplace.

In the interim, at least two other Ballinlough address resales have breached that sum: Nos 7 and 22 in Shrewsbury Downs, across the Ballinlough Rd from Somerton Drive, fetching €1.25m and €1.24m, respectively.

That is the price at which the high-end and newer Hayfield House enters the fray. Might it go well in excess of its €1.25m AMV?

Sherry FitzGerald agent Stuart O’Grady says it’s in one of the city’s most-sought-after, older suburban locations, and describes it as “a stunning, six-bedroom, detached home set at the end of a private cul-de-sac, the Ballinlough Road.” He adds it was “built to an exceptional standard, with a B1 energy rating, solar panels, and car-charging point”.

Mr O’Grady points to things like finishes, the sense of space (well, it is over 3,000 sq ft), extra-high ceilings, and a very good ground-floor layout, with open/linked kitchen/living area, and with adjacent dining area with a feature long-pitched rooflight above the dining table.

A set-back porch, with arched entrance, opens to a right-hand-side hallway, oak-floored, with cloakroom and adjoining guest WC.

There’s a staircase in mahogany, and, to the left, part-glazed double doors open to a carpeted living room with dado rail, marble and granite fireplace, and two front-facing windows, one a gentle bay.

Also oak-floored, the L-shaped kitchen layout has two-tone units, with different granites used as worktops (black granite on the main run of pale units; white stone on the blue-coloured island, which has a raised breakfast bar) and the back wall is a wide run of floor-to-ceiling glazing, in five non-opening panels.

Rear patio access is via double doors from the adjacent dining area, off via a broad arch from the kitchen/living area; as the rear is full southerly in aspect, there’s a retractable awning off the living area’s run of glass.

The home’s first floor has the main bathroom, along with three bedrooms, two of them en suite, with the main one to the back, with projecting bow window, and has both a shower room and a dressing room/walk-in robe.

A second, matching, flight of stairs, with hardwood rail and newels and white-painted, traditional turned spindles, continues to the second floor, home to three more dormer-style bedrooms, plus a further shower room, with a mix of gable windows, and Velux and arched roof dormers, which are metal clad.

Overall condition and presentation is good, both inside and outside, with a site area of 0.2 of an acre, and there’s a brick-paved drive, and mature rear hedge boundaries, with a quite substantial steel shed/home office/gym.

Ready to show for viewings, Hayfield House is likely to have its strongest appeal to trade-up family buyers, who’ll highly rate the suburban Ballinlough setting, close to a range of schools, sport pitches (Cork Con, Páirc Ui Rinn, Avondale FC), as well as Douglas’s swimming pool/park, pitch and putt, Ballinlough Tennis Club courts, bars and shops, and stalwart, family-owned O’Driscolls’ supermarket/deli.

VERDICT: Within a walk of Ballintemple/Marina, Douglas village and, at a longer stretch of the legs, the city centre, who will have the next 10-year plan, and perhaps more plants, too, for pretty Victorian-style Hayfield House?