A lift, an outdoor sauna and a basement playroom - lots in store for buyers at €1.25m Douglas home 

The quintessential family home, seven bed Instow is on 0.25a, right next to the village Main St

Instow, Riverbank, Douglas

Douglas, Cork City
€1.25m
Size	503sq m (5,414 sq ft)
Bedrooms	7
Bathrooms	7
BER	B

With back-to-school looming, residents of the southside suburb of Douglas are steeling themselves for a return to the congestion that is part and parcel of navigating Douglas village during term time. One of the key bottlenecks is the Fingerpost Roundabout, which sits at the meeting point of several busy routes. Anyone passing that way can see queues building, particularly along the Rochestown Rd approach.

The owner of the house featured here, Instow, tucked up a cul-de-sac called Riverbank, just north of the Cork South Ring Rd (N40) flyover, lived for a time at Belgard Downs just beyond the Rochestown Park Hotel. He still recalls the daily “nightmare” of negotiating the Fingerpost Roundabout when trying to get kids to school and himself to work in the city centre.

Moving to Riverbank took the Fingerpost out of the equation — Instow is probably the closest house to the village’s main street on the Douglas Rd side, after you round the corner from the Well Rd. He did end up adjacent to the flyover — which wasn’t there when he bought Instow — but the steady rumble of traffic overhead is, for him, no more than a background presence that barely registers.

Proof of his immunity to it is borne out by the decision to knock and rebuild Instow, rather than move house, when they started to outgrow the original four-bed detached home which he and his late wife bought in 1988. The flyover came on stream about two years later, but they grew used to the whoosh of traffic and by the time they decided that they needed more space, they didn’t think twice about staying put.

Instow, Riverbank, Douglas

“If we had felt that strongly about the flyover, we wouldn’t have bothered going to trouble of knocking and rebuilding Instow, but the truth is, it didn’t bother us. The location is a classic: within walking distance of two shopping centres, pubs, restaurants, schools, bus routes — and on the right side of Douglas to avoid the Fingerpost if you are heading for the city centre,” says the owner.

At any rate, selling Instow would have meant parting with a quarter acre site in Douglas village, an opportunity not easy to recreate. And so the decision was taken — and never regretted — to remain at Riverbank.

The Instow of today is a far more sophisticated dwelling than its predecessor. At more than 5,400sq ft, it’s also a great deal bigger. Where once there were four bedrooms, there are now seven, of which six are en suite. What was once a two-storey home is now, essentially, three-storey over basement, although the top floor is technically a converted attic. It is, in a word, massive.

“When we were digging the foundations, it wasn’t going to cost much more to also do the basement, so that’s what we did. We’ve had some terrific parties there and great sing songs, and because it’s in the basement, there was no fear of upsetting the neighbours,” says the owner.

The basement, a sort of cross between a speakeasy and a Wild West saloon, is essentially every teen (and grown man’s) fantasy, a cavernous underground bolthole, capable of accommodating a snooker table (with wall mounted cue rack), a professional-grade card table, a bar counter, a drinks cabinet, a sectional sofa arranged around a giant TV screen, a drum-kit, a stove, tennis rackets, guitars, dart board with home-and-away scoreboard, along with photographs of various momentous sporting occasions — in short, the kind of subterranean playroom you might see in an American sitcom, but rarely in an Irish home.

Rare too, although growing in popularity, particularly since the pandemic, is the outdoor sauna, the handiwork of Tomás W Design a company run up by one of the three children who grew up at Instow, who now builds and installs custom-made saunas for residential and commercial spaces. With insider knowledge of the grounds of the family home, he knew exactly where to place a sauna to ensure privacy. Big enough for three or four people, it’s an electric sauna that heats up with the flick of a cleverly concealed switch, in 30 minutes — so no messing about with logs. Fans of ice-bucket challenges or slow starters in the morning can avail of the bucket shower or a cold plunge for a rude awakening. Those who like to combine a dip in the sea with a sauna can head for Myrtleville or Fountainstown, reachable in under half an hour from Instow.

The gardens are plenty big for a sauna and beautifully laid out and planted, thanks to the late, great Brian Cross, one of Cork’s best known garden designers. A patio swirls in and out around the back of the house and french doors open to it from the bow window of the genteel living room and from french doors off the kitchen. A towering screen of evergreens blanks out the flyover.

There are two ways to access Instow: via a private pedestrian path that leads from the rear garden down broad, shallow steps to a door that opens straight onto the Douglas Rd, or via a vehicular entrance just north of the flyover that serves the half dozen or so homes in Riverbank, one of which dates to the 18th century and was, at one time, home to a Dr Francis Moylan, bishop of Cork from 1787-1815. The house he lived in was called Douglas Hall and it’s still there, close to Douglas Wells apartments, at the back of the cul de sac and also visible from the Well Rd. Other notables associated with Riverbank include the late Fine Gael TD Liam Burke, who lived next door to Instow.

One or two houses on the lane are originals, but others, like Cherryfield — with shoreline frontage to Douglas Estuary — are replacements. Like re-invented Instow (rebuilt 2004), they’re a good deal bigger and more ambitious than the earlier editions. At Instow, rooms keep popping up: beyond the wild west is a laundry room and additional storage space; at the top of the basement stairs there’s a fine home office; deeper into the house a kitchen-cum-dining room is open to a cosy family room with sliding doors — all before you ever cross the big, bright hallway to the spacious living room, or ground floor en suite double bedroom, next to a lift — the ultimate gesture in future-proofing, capable of carrying 340kg and of serving all four floors.

If you choose to walk the broad staircase, you’ll find four double bedrooms on the first floor, with a special feature off the main one: a very generous balcony. It also has ‘His’ and ‘Her’ walk-in-wardrobes and a substantial en suite with jacuzzi bath and shower.

A small theatre group could stage a production on the top-floor landing, such is the space — and there are another two roomy double bedrooms.

Clearly the instruction to the architect — Pat Nash of Dennehy & Dennehy Architects — was to “think big”.

The owner is thinking now that it’s too big as the three kids raised there — Tomás, Ian, and Ellen — have grown up and moved on. Moreover, his wife died suddenly, tragically, five years ago and he feels it’s time to downsize.

Selling Instow are joint agents Kevin O’Sullivan of Barry Auctioneers and Malcolm Tyrrell of Cohalan Downing and they stress the stellar location.

“Houses of this calibre, on 0.25a, so close to Douglas village, are rare. Given the space and versatility of the property, we expect lots of interest from families trading up. It’s tailor-made for a busy household and close to every amenity,” the agents says.

The grounds ensure plenty of room for parking — and there’s an EV charger — while electric gates and mature trees around the boundary add to the sense of privacy.

The guide price is €1.25m.

VERDICT: Teenagers will be ecstatic at the prospect of a subterranean playground, while the outdoor sauna will appeal to wellbeing enthusiasts, or those in search of a cure after a night of underground revelry ... lots of extras like the bedroom balcony, the lift and the Brian Cross garden.