Will Robinscourt on Model Farm Road breach the €2m barrier?

The secluded Robinscourt on a pristine half-acre on Cork’s Model Farm Road was lovingly upgraded in the 1990s

Robinscourt, Model Farm Road. Pictures: John Roche

Model Farm Road, Cork city
€1.85m
Size	340sq m (3,640sq ft)
Bedrooms	4
Bathrooms	5
BER	D1

Certain Cork locations are bankers for high prices for top homes.

Think Kinsale, with its 88 recorded €1m-plus sales; Blackrock with 59 sales over the magic €1m mark, followed by Douglas, at 57.

And the Model Farm Road has had a not-scanty 32 €1m+ sales, whether houses along it and just off it, or with a Bishopstown address. This is where the superb ‘des res,’ Robinscourt, has been hidden away for the best part of a century, yet in 2026 looking and feeling young at heart.

Admittedly, the €1m-plus sales at the ‘banker’ locations include properties that had development potential, and, in some cases, sales of blocks of units, typically apartments. Change the search parameters to sales of €2m properties in the same locations and the air narrows: Kinsale shows 18 sales of over €2m, Douglas 16, Blackrock seven, and just two on or off the Model Farm Road, where both of the latter were sold for development of their grounds.

Might Robinscourt be the first private home with a Model Farm Road address to breach the €2m level?

It’s a fair bet that it will, and, entirely by coincidence, there may well be a second, prominently-set listing of a newer home, further in the western suburbs, sure to pique interest, when or if it comes to market.

Robinscourt, listed with a €1.85m price guide with estate agent Michael McKenna, is as good as you’re likely to get anywhere around or outside Cork City, spanning 3,640sq ft on a generous 0.5 of an acre of groomed grounds.

The house was originally built by the Barrett family, who owned extensive lands around the Model Farm Road back in the early 1900s.

It was later owned by a University College Cork medical/academic family, the O’Mahonys, and was last on the market in the 1980s, when it was bought by Jim and Jean Keating. They moved across the city from Douglas, rearing a family of five.

Around the same time, sites of the original house’s grounds also got sold for detached houses, with a shared entrance to several of them, which, in turn, have their own secure gates to entry off the city end of Model Farm Road.

The late Jim Keating (who passed away in 2021) was widely known across the city, having joined Cross’s garage on Fr Mathew St, later co-founding Cross Refrigeration, now the Cross Group, a considerable operator in the commercial and supermarket refrigeration sector with three Irish depots and a UK presence.

The family embraced this home, considerably extending and altering it in the 1990s, when they moved out for a number of months, with the redesign overseen by Wilson Architects. They added wings to the west, and to the east, with a new entrance lobby, as well as a south-aspected sun room linked to the main family room.

A look at the roof readily shows what the original size and shape was, versus what’s here now, post redesign and extension.

The newer, Wilson-designed additions are notable for the selection of tiles, whether robust red clay ones with distinctive ‘bonnet’ ridge tiles in the newer sections, or with glazing touches, such as unusual apexes above the sun room with its gorgeous garden views, porch, and side room.

The brief, says daughter Gillian, was to achieve long through-views from the entrance foyer right through past several sets of glazed internal doors to the far end, perhaps an internal run of 55’ or 60’ end-to-end. The same idea was followed through in the other direction, from the kitchen to across the hall, and through the sun room/living room to the front garden, with the garden a particular passion of mother Jean, who passed away last year.

There’s a good half an acre here, planted over decades with mature trees all around the perimeter for complete privacy, with an array of flowering shrubs, seasonal beds, mown lawns fore and aft, old cobble steps, brick paved sit-out areas, and cars kept out of sight to the rear on a large apron, with a lofty double garage/car port with storage.

Today, there’s c 370 sq m, or just over 3,600 sq ft inside of pristine, glistening, bright and welcoming spaces, neutrally but expertly decorated, with subtle wallpapers and finishes that are timeless. Thanks to regular upgrades and meticulous maintenance, you get the character of an older-era home, with high ceilings, coving, fine fireplaces (including, now, one in the entrance vestibule) with modern attention to detail, comforts, and services.

Notable, too, is the glazing pattern in the 1990s alterations, inside and outside, with a variety of small and large panes mixed, giving an interior/exterior coherence, along with deep roof overhangs for an almost pagoda-style effect.

Internally, there are four reception rooms, three with a south aspect and two with garden access; there’s a living room with marble fireplace; a family room (also with fireplace) linking into the sweet, sunny spot; a gable-end sitting room with sit-in circular window seat; a good-size office/TV room/den, and kitchen, with country style/Shaker timber units painted white, topped with white granite and all serviced by a Stanley range.

Off the kitchen is a laundry/utility/back entry point, while by the main covered side/front entrance is a guest WC, next to a plant room/cloakroom.

The first floor now holds four bedrooms, one per corner of the original house’s outline, with a west-wing, two-storey extension (clad externally in black tile) allowing each of the two on this side of the home to have walk-in robes/closet with en suites.

The other two bedrooms also are en suite and, again, finished in a style not likely to date.

Then, there’s a narrow, almost secret, enclosed staircase up to an attic, with pitched roof for good headroom in the middle, and masses of space for storage; it could also be used as a play room, ready for a bright boost if a few Veluxes were to be fitted.

The BER’s a D1, reflective of the house’s age, size, several fireplaces, and lack of ‘renewables,’ so that might be something a new owner might want to look at, given that nothing else needs to be upgraded at this superbly laid out and highly functional and accommodating home.

Robinscourt has done the current family owners huge service. Given the fact that the Keatings had five children here, and later 13 grandchildren visiting, it’s extraordinary there isn’t a mark on a wall, a stain on a carpet, or a scratch on the oak floors….it’s a rare ‘walk-in’ order, high-end home.

Back to location: Robinscourt is just to the west of two of the more recent Model Farm Road upmarket new homes, Merton and Vailima, where new-builds have fetched as much as €1.3m, and the current top prices for the wider Model Farm Road were the €1.72m paid for Merton Lodge and the €1.68m for Small Acre on Bishopstown Avenue, both in 2023, while €1.57m was paid for Tanglewood in 2011.

Closest physically to Robinscourt is Clifden, a 1985-built, 2,600 sq ft dormer directly in front of Robinscourt, sharing the same access drive and bounding the Model Farm Rd.

Clifden went to market in May of last year for €1.5m and sold for €1.375m via Lisney SIR, who say they had 17 viewings, of which seven were medics, given the proximity of Cork University Hospital, Bon Secours, and the Mercy.

Also close are UCC and Munster Technological University, shops, schools, other services, as well as excellent public transport options, says Robinscourt’s selling agent, Michael McKenna, of his €1.85m hot ticket listing.

VERDICT: Robinscourt ticks so many boxes for buyers at the upper end of Cork City’s housing market and “offers an outstanding opportunity to acquire a forever home in one of Cork’s most prestigious neighbourhoods”, says Mr McKenna. Little wonder it has only ever had three sets of owners to date, over almost a century.

A fiver says it should easily top €2m.