Lee Valley home is fit for family, fun and games, and pets 

EVERY owner to date has put their own stamp and investment on this Clashanure, Ovens home, which now poses the question: what’s left for the next occupants to do?

Set within a very short walk, or a good golfer’s drive, of Cork’s Lee Valley Golf Club, this accommodating and very private home is now a couple of decades old. It was first built around 1996 by a builder as his own family home; it then moved to next owner(s), while its current owner, involved in the tech sector, brought it all even more up to date.

She put in a new kitchen from Celtic Kitchens; all new bathrooms; a secret pantry by reordering an open plan kitchen layout; put in handy bifold doors to the patio, added a new/upgraded large utility room with even a bespoke pet washing shower/bath, and upgraded flooring and décor.

Then, she also built a large detached garage to a A-rate insulation standard, adding about another 250 sq ft to the 3,100 sq ft main property, done to a high standard with expensive cedarwood double doors made to order, and linked it back to the sizeable main house via a pergola over a paved parking area.

 But, despite buying only as recently as 2019, maybe there’s more energy in the tank: she’s on the lookout for a place with acres of ground, hence the arrival of this spotless order five+ bedroomed home on its one acre mature, screened grounds on the west of city market.

It’s just listed in this off-selling season, in an already quietened late 2023 market, with agent Norma Healy of Sherry FitzGerald who guides the highly adaptable layout home at €910,000: she’s confident of demand up at this end of the price range having sold an adjacent home, the c 4,000 sq ft two-storey home Sonas which featured in these pages within the last year.

Sonas is across the quiet Clashanure country lane from this offer, and came to market with a €895,000 AMVfor its vendor who owns Timberland in Cork, with its appropriate ‘tree’ logo for such a green, lovely and leafy setting: in the event, Sonas sold for €100k over the AMV, showing at €990,000 on the Price Register since this September.

It’s likely Ms Healy will some of the same faces, both bidders and viewers back here now, as the location is strong, ideal for golfers or home owners who if not golfers themselves will have guests or family members keen to play there, or be entertained there, while just to the north is Farran Country Park, National Rowing Centre, and water and wooded amenities plus Coachford village’s services too.

It’s all within a super-short and easy spin of the city fringes and Ballincollig, suiting those in the third level, medical and tech sectors, while the opening of the second stage of the Macroom bypass makes Kerry an easy commute/visiting option also.

With a south-west orientation, and slight split level to its rear grounds, Sherry Fitz’s Ms Healy says this property is in turnkey condition and “far removed from the hustle and bustle of urban life,” even if distance-wise it’s so easily reached, with a charming, winding chicane road up from Farran itself on the N22.

An electric gate opens to this Clashanure home, and brick apron drive, with natural stone on the new garage sourced as a match for that on the house’s two front wings. And, although it’s essentially a bungalow with all of its space handily on the one level, the layout once inside is unpredictable, with its range/choice of bedrooms at opposite parts, to the left off the hall, with up to four or even five here and with two more to the back, past the large, lofted ceilinged kitchen/living/dining rooms with bifold doors to the patio.

One of the front bedrooms is en suite, and upfront also is a guest bathroom, while the two at the far, distant back also are en suite.

But, that’s not quite all on the plumbing front. The redone utility has a custom shower unit for pet/child/sports player golf gear.

Hailing from the other side of Ovens, by Kilcrea Abbey, the vendor and extended family are animal lovers and she’s currently got two fussy cats, one of them recently ‘with litter’ of five kittens, two German Shepherds, two Tibetan terriers and a beagle.

Oh, and living here since last year is a woman guest from war-struck Ukraine, invited here with her own almost hairless Chinese Crested pooch, almost part of this Ovens menagerie/family.

That mix in most family homes might hint at pet odours, but here, thankfully, not a trace: the glorious practicality of a dog shower, and plentiful applications of Head & Scruff shampoo, surely?

An architect oversaw the most recent alterations, and the home’s walk-in order will give it an appeal to house hunters at the upper end of the price scale: for those who want to make their own mark, well, a sunken bath in a back en suite bedroom is au update project left ‘to do’ on the owners’ wish-list.

Apart from the physically diverse siting of the bedrooms, fore and aft in the very deep, extended home, there’s also optional use of several if new occupants don’t need all seven available, or six or five: here. Four are in regular use, and the others can be variously used as a play room, home study/office, yoga, or gym, while the garage has as many other uses too.

In addition, there are two oak floored reception/family rooms separate to the kitchen/living dining to the front right, one large (about 24’ by 14’) and they connect via double doors, with a stove in a stone chimney breast in the larger of the two.

A second Stovax stove features in the voluminous kitchen/diner, where the presence of a laundry/hidden pantry behind what ostensibly looks like kitchen cabinet doors will delight many, as will the boot room across the way with its pet bath and access to a sheltered courtyard by a gable end with hidden shed. A stand-out feature in the lofty ‘great room/ kitchen/diner main living space is the series of hefty pitch pine beams (with some retained bark) the lofty vaulted ceiling space, sourced by previous owners when they put their own mark and extension on this now-spacious home.

The pine was apparently sourced locally, while appropriately this house and some of its Clashanure neighbours are all backed by quite recently planted Farran forestry. Thus, when further decades roll around, future owners can harvest locally grown timber on the doorstep. for their own domestic projects.

VERDICT: Far, yet and not so far and away at all, at Farran, and with golf and walkies on hand.