Seven can be heaven, with top quality new-builds on Cork city's peaceful Quaker Road

Fresh, out of the box, yet on the street in the case of three, are terraced A-rated numbers 7, 8, and 9 Quaker Road, along with the more hidden, but engagingly glimpsed through electric gates, numbers 1,2, 3, and 4 Quaker Court.

They come for sale at the end of quite a long journey, starting back in 2016, in fact, when a trio with long experience in the home building trade got together and first bought two in ’17: they then picked up a third — No 9 — in 2017, giving them enough presence on this venerable older times city cross street and, critically, with long gardens behind them to allow for slight, additional infill or vacant city lot development.

They drafted in the expertise of architect Pat Nash of Doyle McDonagh Nash, and got to work on the planning ... but it wasn’t an entirely smooth road to get from there, to here, and that was despite the goodwill of neighbours who were happy to see the site development.

One of the more unexpected hiccups was being slapped with a derelict sites order and a €6,000 levy, even though at the time of the order they’d only quite recently taken ownership and had a live planning application and were rearing to go.

Bizarrely, while they pleaded the case that they were actually in the process of redressing long-time dereliction at this address, the section of City Hall that they were dealing with at the time said they didn’t themselves liaise directly with the planning department, and that it wasn’t their business, and wanted the levy to stick.

Hopefully, with the current national and local drive to reduce vacancy and dereliction, that sort of seemingly intractable response wouldn’t pertain today? And, in any case, the planning process eventually worked its way through; the site has been turned from dereliction/underuse to sensitive, high quality new housing, including a period of construction during the pandemic. The fully finished result is here now, seven new builds, out of the box and out of the ground, all good to go.

A buyer could be in for Christmas? If that’s expecting too swift a conveyance, by early 2024, or by Easter, most definitely.

The Quaker Road ensemble is listed with estate agents Suzanne Tyrrell and Malcolm Tyrrell of Cohalan Downing who say not only is the design and quality of a very high standard, with styles and layouts different one from another, front to back, but the chance to buy a new detached home so centrally set in the city/inner suburbs is beyond rare: if a site like this came available now, the locally authority would definitely be pushing for higher density.

And, not only would density likely be higher, it’s probable the finished product would be bought in its entirety by a housing body or, indeed, by City Hall itself.

But here all seven are available to private buyers. The front three, the mid-terraced numbers 7, 8, and 9 Quaker Road will allow buyers quality for the Help to Buy Scheme, as all are under the €500,000 HTB price threshold.

No 8 Quaker Road is an 817 sq ft one-bed duplex, mostly up and over the wide arch/entrance, priced at €375,000; the two-bed 921 sq ft street side townhouse No 7 is €410,000, and on the other side No 9 is also a two-bed on the street, with 845 sq ft, and priced at €400,000.

Now hold a breath as the four detached two-beds inside are up quite the price notch. Slightly varying in size and internal layout, as well as with the amount of outdoor space, they range from from 943 sq ft to 954 sq ft, each over two levels; all are equally priced at €585,000 or at about €620 per square foot (psf).

Recent breakdowns of launches of high-end, new builds in the Cork market have seen prices typically all above €520 psf, up to €569 psf for far larger homes to a builder’s finish (eg, Ecklinville, Orchard Road, Vailima, Model Farm Road, and Watersland, Kinsale), allowing for ‘economies of scale’ for such larger footprint homes.

Buyers looking for smaller, secure city homes here at Quaker Road will likely be factoring in the address, low running cost of A2/A3-rated homes, the fuller fit-out with kitchens in, built-ins, tiling and the like, and comparing it with buying older, colder, and having to engage with builders and disparate construction trades if buying a renovation in the locale.

Comparisons might be the current sale offer of 29 Quaker Road, also on the market; it’s a D1-rated two-bed/one bath mid-terraced home in good order, of 49 sq m, guided at €215,000.

Location-wise, Quaker Road is the next slender road south of buzzy Douglas Street which runs from Summerhill South (opposite the equally narrow Windmill Road) to Evergreen Street. Here, Nos 7, 8, and 9 face the lovely cul de sac run of terraced houses on EastView, which looks over the city’s old Quaker graveyard.

The area’s Qaker past is, indeed recalled again here too, in the gates guarding the entrance to Quaker Court’s four homes on the other side. These commissioned gates incorporate the eight-pointed star (unlike Israel’s six-pointed one) and has been used as a symbol of peace by non-combatant Quakers in battles and other roles since the late 19th century.

Quaker Court’s four detached houses are cleverly staggered on the deep and narrow site, two to the left, two to the right, alternating with a central passage between them for long sight lines, while the internal route is characterised by good attention to hard landscaping and planting (done by Sublime Landscaping) including a crisp white-painted, rendered boundary walls, and the zig-zag placing also helps cut overlooking from one house to the other.

Build quality of the individual houses is high (they were effectively built by direct labour by the experienced developer trio who have other sites in the pipeline,) done in Cygnum timber frame for the back four, with en suite bedrooms, large guest WCs and private bathrooms, flooring is fully finished, good kitchens and bedrooms built-ins, with carpeted stairs and stainless steel handrails in the detacheds.

Thanks to architect Pat Nash’s input, the A-rated new homes have attractively different quirks or angles, zinc sheeting, higher bedroom ceilings in the street-facing trio, up into the roof pitch, while the four behind have storage spaces by service rooms, topped with membrane roofs. Heating is air to water, underfloor at ground level and via rads upstairs.

VERDICT: You’d know an architect was given an extra bit of free rein here, it shows in the freshness of the finished product, while the chances of a private development being done again in such a convenient city setting with detached home options is extremely rare.