House of the Week: Possibly the world's most scenic tennis court at €1.65m West Cork home

This bungalow in Glengarriff sits on 6.6 acres and is perfectly positioned for exploring the local scenery by kayak from its private cove

Vale Cove, Ardnaturrish Beg, Glengarriff, County Cork. Pictures: Paul McShane

Glengarriff, Co Cork
€1.65m
Size	192 sq m (2,066 sq ft)
Bedrooms	2
Bathrooms	3
BER	B1

It could be hard to keep your eye on the ball when playing tennis at West Cork’s privately-set Vale Cove — the dramatically set court is at the end of a rocky outcrop by the ocean’s edge in stunningly beautiful Glengarriff bay/Bantry bay.

Only known to a handful, it could be a contender for one of Europe’s most scenically set tennis courts — maybe just a few pegs below the cliffs-set court at the Italian hotel Il San Pietro di Positano on the Amalfi coast, or the Riviera’s Monte Carlo County Club’s red clay courts?

This all-weather tennis court is just one of the attractions of Vale Cove, a 1970s bungalow bought in 2011 by a German family already living in Ireland (they had an equestrian business inland) for holidays, and it later became their full-time residence.

They spotted it in these pages in July 2011 when it had a €695,000 AMV (it sold for a recorded €550,000, but the land coming with it may have added more) and back then was a dated three-bed.

Irish Examiner Property: July 30, 2011

Now, it’s a vastly upgraded and enlarged single-storey home, reconfigured as a two-bed, three-bath 2,066 sq ft waterside retreat on 6.6 acres, sensitively replanted and naturally landscaped.

Launched at €1.65m by Con O’Neill, of Sherry FitzGerald O’Neill, who courts both Irish and overseas interest for this “private waterfront retreat”, it’s one of just a handful of homes at Ardnaturrish Beg, a rocky townland below the N71 between Ballylickey/Snave/Coomhola and Glengarriff. It’s one of very few homes in the wider area with direct water frontage and has its own private, shingle cove coming with it.

Shingles? Doubles? Anyone for tennis?

It’s on a jutting-out section called Yellow Rock (due to the lichens, the owners point out) and the Yellow Rock name also extends out into the bay where other “yellow peril” rocks are more or less visible depending on the tides.

A boat owner perhaps buying here would want to keep their eyes peeled when using the sheltered cove, just 100m or less from the house. Exploring by kayak is safer, it’s suggested.

Apart from the superb setting of the astroturf tennis court (it’s so well set up for draining it’s bone dry half an hour after even the heaviest rain), the approximately 50-year-old home is now as good as new, and most likely far better.

It scores a B1 BER after energy upgrades which include both solar tubes for hot water and PV panels for generating electricity, has high quality bathrooms, two studies, main bedroom linked to both with sun-terrace access (the other has a free-standing bath in its en suite with cove views), new kitchen and utility, living room, dining room (small guest bedroom?), and a generous hall.

The reconfigured home is larger than before (previous owner was the well-known, late Ted Toye, who also owned Glengarriff Castle along with several other Bantry area properties) and is in immaculate order, inside and out, and has a new detached garage, a large dog run by a wood storage shed (no end of free firewood for the living room’s stove given the extensive planting), plus there’s a new deep bore well on the highest ground, for the purest water.

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VERDICT: €1.65m may seem pricey for what’s technically only a two-bed, but Vale Cove will be game, set, and match for the right buyer.