€1.25m West Cork home settles perfectly into sculpted setting

This waterside Skibbereen home is generous and immaculate

Cunnamore, Skibbereen, Cork. Pictures: Niamh Whitty

Cunnamore, West Cork
€1.25m
Size	293 sq m (3,160 sq ft)
Bedrooms	4
Bathrooms	3
BER	B3

Nature competes with art, and low-key architecture, at this waterside wonder a stone’s skip from West Cork’s Roaringwater Bay, and a jumping off point for island hopping.

A late and rare summer 2026 listing, this much extended home with an almost art gallery feel to its interiors is on an acre by a private cove at picturesque Cunnamore pier, from where a ferry tacks its way past rocks to and from Heir Island, a four-minute boat trip to a wildflower-filled wild isle.

The spot’s natural beauty was first appreciated over 30 years ago by a couple with an aesthetic eye, artists’ agent and art dealer Chris Boon and his wife Diana when they answered an ad for a year-long let of a ‘new’, unfurnished three/four-bed house between Ballydehob and Skibbereen.

After an initial brief stormy weather blip on a December day of arrival in 1993, they were smitten, says Diana, and the couple later persuaded the house’s owner to sell it to them as a permanent home as “we couldn’t afford to live in England”. It’s been a private and art-filled family home ever since, but grew in fits and starts, with several sympathetic extensions and alterations to create what’s now a low-slung yet substantial, dormer home of over 3,100 sq ft, with distinctive concrete roof barges delineating and framing the several and asymmetric sections, all in a non-showy way.

“The joke was that if Di got bored, she did an extension or made other changes to her home,” quips estate agent Andy Donoghue of Hodnett Forde as first viewings of this one-off Cunnamore home, almost part of a ‘clachan’ cluster of three different but equally attractive homes by a west-facing cove, at the end of the long cul de sac road from the N71 to Cunnamore Pier.

It’s been a popular spot for family and friends to visit from near and far, and among the additions back in 1998 was a small studio by a useful garage created by Chris Boon (who passed away suddenly over 20 years ago) for the acclaimed artist Ian Humphreys, who continues to live, work and exhibit in West Cork after living for many years on nearby Heir Island.

Today, this home remains art and sculpture filled, mostly contemporary works, with engaging work competing for attention with views out from within through the many large windows and “every room, bar one, has a water view”, notes Hodnett Forde’s Mr Donoghue.

Of note are the window heights, practically floor-to-ceiling in many cases — such as in the study, with a sculpture by UK artist Malcolm Poynter of a male figure incongruously posed on an exercise bike between two tall windows — recently upgraded for creature comforts and which helped this home with its 1980s roots get to a B3 energy rating. (Builder down the years here has been the well-regarded local Martin Harte, with design input from John Collins.)

Also part of the energy saving and generating package is a large free-standing bank of solar PV panels, linked to a Duracell Energy battery storage system, handy as this home is heated by electricity in the main with modern wall-mounted heaters, while thrumming away at the home’s real heart and kitchen hearth is a substantial black electric four-oven Aga, surrounded by highly glazed splashback tiles and a raised eight-tile art/craft work in pride of place.

There’s an easy flow around the rooms of this casually-curated one-off, most having a due west aspect looking out over an undulating lawn to the sea, bay, islands, and boat traffic — busy in summer, sparse in winter.

Catching the eye here is a feature limestone sculpture by Somerset-based sculptor Patrick Barker, a rounded male figure and dog, peering out to sea: it’s one of several outdoor works here by the same artist and, almost certainly, a piece new occupants here might want to keep on site.

It’s a trade-down time now for the woman of the house, but she’s staying local once a sale goes through. Hodnett Forde guide “in excess of €1.25 million”, which seems very much ‘on the money’ for such a setting, with an acre of grounds, water frontage, quality of build, aspect and views, plus internal comfort and ease, all easy on the eye too. (The Price Register shows a substantial Cunnamore dormer nearby selling back in 2024 for a recorded €835,000.)

Here, closer to the water/on the water, the grounds are easily enough kept, with a robot mower keeping on top of the grass, while gravel paths and paving and a large parking area also feature, as does a small glasshouse with a mature vine currently ripening red Homburg grapes. Also to hand are veg/herb beds, none as engaging as a raised bed packed to the brim with an array of back-on-trend exuberant dahlias.

Back inside, selected dahlia blooms are laid out in glasses on the dining room table, next to a gable end sun lounge with raised pitched roof and triple aspect, while at the core now is an expanded living area with a huge sliding door to a stone paved patio, open to the views and weather, of all hues and seasons.

A large cast iron stove is to one side of this big room, next up is a library with built-in shelving and a feature cubby corner seat, and further is the triple aspect, c 16ft by 16ft study/family room, also with a cast iron stove.

Also at ground are a bedroom, shower room, and a storage room, with large hall and feature wide staircase, with stainless steel handrail, and there’s as many as five access points for ease of indoor/outdoor movement.

The first floor is dormer in character, with three bedrooms angled off a T-shaped landing, two bathrooms (one with deep, Japanese-style bath), and sanitary ware/tiling upstairs continues the select, high-quality trend. In addition to the three first floor bedrooms (no en suites) is a nursery/small play room.

Overall condition and presentation is immaculate, so any changes next fortunate occupants might make will be entirely discretionary, with auctioneer Andy Donoghue saying its mix of privacy, maturity, and breath-taking scenery overlooking Carbery’s 100 islands means “this remarkable residence with separate garage and studio must be one of the most desirable listings to arrive to the market in West Cork all year. In my experience, there’s usually one standout listing in any year and, for me, this is this year’s highlight.”

VERDICT: Some Irish coastal properties can be a bit ‘shouty’ about their existence, not so here, where the setting, sea, sky, shore and nature do the talking, nature’s beauty, gently buffed up by art.