Lotamore, Cork City €995,000 Size 205 sq m (2,208 sq ft) Bedrooms 4 Bathrooms 3 BER A2 Remember that ol’ chestnut “it’s what’s inside that counts”? Turns out, sometimes, it’s what’s outside. While even the most pernickety would struggle to find fault with the interiors at Cregg Lodge, the “real magic”, as the owner says, is out back. Projecting out like a ledge high above Cork City is a long stretch of lawn, healthy, tree-lined, well-tended.
Beyond the ledge is Cregg Lodge’s USP (unique selling point): the land drops away and the wide sweep of the city opens up before you. It looks east, towards Mahon Point and beyond; west, towards the Port of Cork and downwards, towards the river and Tivoli harbour. It’s a real surprise.
There’s no inkling of what’s in store from the front of the house. You need to go in deeper, to the main open-plan living space, for a first glimpse of this treat. In a house with a liberal dose of “wow factors”, the garden/view combo is the headliner.
“The big thing for me is the back garden. It’s where the magic is. It faces south and it has trees that are more than 40 years old, planted by a neighbour back in the 1980s.
“And then there’s the view,” says the owner. When they bought the half-acre site above Burke’s Hill in 2018, it was under a canopy of 70 or so trees. Many were felled to create space for the build, but the owners were careful to ensure that what was left represented a diversity of specimens.
A giant Scots pine stands sentinel at the bottom of the garden. The owner says it’s like a landmark that identifies the whereabouts of Cregg Lodge. “We’ve had friends tell us they can see where the house is from Mahon Point and from Carr’s Hill in Rochestown.
The Scots pine is very visible,” the owner says. He’s deliberately kept the landscaping simple — and it works. Mainly lawn, there are various bursts of colour around the bases of trees as flowers push through.
A children’s playhouse and playstation (slide/swings/climbing frame) blend in between the trees. A generous patio enjoys the same south-facing aspect and continues around the side of the house. The garden is like a signal for seasonal change, which the owner loves.
His upbringing was rural, and when he and his wife were house-hunting, they had two main requirements: that their home would capture characteristics of countryside living and that it would also be close to amenities. “We were close to both worlds here,” he says of secluded Cregg Lodge, in Lotamore, from where the North Ring Road is reachable in minutes by car. Banteer-based Murphy New Homes built Cregg Lodge based on the couple’s own design, with advice from a retired engineer who was a neighbour while they rented for a while in Douglas.
As the owner also has an engineering background — and had toyed for a while with the notion of studying architecture — he had design ideas of his own. The immaculate interiors were all his wife’s doing. “She has a good eye for detail and the house has proven that she can deliver,” he says.
They were guided by a desire for lots of light. Glazing, by Munster Joinery, is bountiful. The dining table is exactly where it should be: next to huge sliding doors with the garden in full view.
Picture windows of differing size and shape are dotted here and there, framing different parts of the outdoors. Back-in-fashion glass cubes are cleverly used too to boost natural light The sleek kitchen area has a large, stylish two-tone island, an instant-boiling-water Quooker tap (no need for a kettle) and feature wall panelling. Off it is a sunken living room, down two steps, with a large picture window and door to the patio.
Through an open arch is a snug with a woodburning stove. “As country people, having a fire was important to us. We’ve loved having the stove and having the fire lighting.
It adds warmth and cosiness,” the owner says. While the rooms to the rear are all open to each other, the rooms to the front of the house are separate. There’s a generous utility off the kitchen with cloakroom/boot storage and a pretty height chart painted on to the wall to record any growth spurts among the couple’s four girls.
At the opposite side of a very wide hallway is a ground-floor bedroom (home office?). Off it, a wheelchair-accessible guest WC is plumbed for a shower. The hallway is fantastically bright thanks to a towering double-height window over the solid oak open-tread staircase.
Carrigaline Joinery’s handiwork, it’s a feature in itself, with extra-wide steps at the base, narrowing as it runs upwards alongside a glass balustrade. Double windows on the landing add to the light quota and open up the garden view. Each of three upstairs bedrooms is a double.
The main has a walk-in vanity area and a de-luxe en suite. The remaining two bedrooms have walk-in closets. The bathroom is another example of the interior design flair which the woman of the house displays.
There’s a lovely uniformity to the ground floor thanks to the decision to run porcelain tiling throughout the main living areas. There’s under-floor heating downstairs too. An air filtration/heat recovery system means good air quality throughout.
Attention to detail is at a premium at Cregg Lodge, where the energy-efficiency rating is a top-class A2. This achievement, along with the magic of the back garden, is what the owner loves most about this home. “The view at night is special, out over the harbour and the city, where the lights are like stars,” he says.
He’s relocating because circumstances dictate so. Ann O’Mahony and Paul Fenton, of Sherry FitzGerald, are handling the sale of 205 sq m Cregg Lodge. They say it’s “a unique opportunity to acquire a high-end luxury home” in a cul-de-sac off Burke’s Hill (Flemings Restaurant is at the foot of Burke’s Hill) “where everything is a mere 10-minute drive away”.
They’re expecting strong interest from families trading up, as well as house-hunters looking to relocate from Dublin and London. Mr Fenton says the excellent energy rating is an obvious attraction. The guide price for Cregg Lodge is €995,000.
VERDICT: There aren’t many back gardens in the city with a view like this one. A high-end family home in a mature, secluded setting. Bonus points for the energy rating.
.
