Glorious garden and plenty of class in €465k Courtmacsherry home

Catherine Shanahan admires a fine West Cork home and garden

Cois Cuain, Courtmacsherry

Courtmacsherry, Co Cork
€465,000
Size	174sq m (1,873sq ft)
Bedrooms	4
Bathrooms	3
BER	B3

Cois Cuain in Courtmacsherry was completed by developer John Fleming before the Bandon man went bust following the 2008 banking crisis and subsequent property crash. No 11 Cois Cuain first featured in these pages in 2010 as the first resale in the estate of 37 steel-frame Fleming Construction homes. The writer at the time described it as “a semi-detached four-bed with a traditional layout and a really fresh interior approach”.

Sixteen years later, it’s as fresh looking as ever and John Fleming is looking good too: Having filed for bankruptcy in Britain with debts of about €1bn across the Fleming Group in 2011, he’s back building student accommodation in Cork on sites in Victoria Cross/Dennehy’s Cross. Meanwhile, across the water, he’s going gangbusters building major modular high-rise residential projects in London and other British cities.

Cois Cuain is part of the original Fleming group legacy and it’s a nice-looking scheme. While house layouts are traditional, there is the bonus of a sunroom, integrated into the open plan kitchen/dining space. A separate living room has sliding pocket doors, allowing it to also become part of the larger living space, which is useful for entertaining. As the living room has a stove, the sliding doors are equally useful to close the room off and to cosy up over the winter months.

You don’t have a view of Courtmacsherry Harbour from the windows of this home, but it’s immediately visible once you walk out the front door. The charming village was once home to the Earl of Shannon, who can take credit for many of its exotic trees, shrubs and woods.

No 11 has some very nice planting of its own, particularly in the rear garden, where growth is good as a result of the East/West site orientation and the unrelenting sunshine of recent months, best enjoyed from a sandstone patio.

The 174sq m home, with a solid B3 energy rating, is guiding at €465,000 via selling agent Frank O’Driscoll of Hodnett Forde and is already under offer at €452,000. It’s hard to know how this will compare with the price of three-bed semis currently under construction in a neighbouring field, due to come on stream next year, as prices have yet to be set. What can be said is that a substantially smaller (106sq m) end-of-terrace three-bed Cois Cuain home sold earlier this year for €415,000 and neither the interiors nor the garden were as good as this one.

Mr O’Driscoll notes that there’s “an option to convert the attic” at No 11, as a builder’s opinion was sought and it was favourable. It’s already plumbed and wired and has two Velux windows.

Of the house, the agent says it’s “walk-in, superb, with a glorious garden”, and while the owner has enjoyed living there for 13 years, she is now downsizing to Clonakilty.

Home-hunters in search of a permanent base as well as investors are among the interested parties. Mr O’Driscoll says the majority of Cois Cuain homes are now owner- occupied, with some investor/holiday home properties. Beaches are plentiful in the wider area, and Courtmacsherry is on the Wild Atlantic Way.

VERDICT: Well-presented house and garden in a cute village, just 15 minutes from Clonakilty and Kinsale. Cork City is about a 50-minute drive away.