Handsome West Cork hideaway for €475,000

THERE’S many the mile between the start of the Wild Atlantic Way at Kinsale and even a first significant stop-off spot such as Clonakilty — and it will take maybe 45 minute to drive between them.If you go direct.However, if you go off-piste and follow every road and coastline indentation, you could spend a day (or a holiday week) tootling along backroads and bays — in which case you might well pass this hideaway home, under the road and above cliffs, called Faill An tSrutáin, at Lehenagh, Lislevane — even the townland names are relatively unknown outside the parish, and finding roads to Lehenagh can be almost hit and miss.Basically, we’re talking just west of Dunworley Bay, headland, and beach and south of Timoleague out along a rugged headland elevation with 180 degree sea and shipping views — just the sort of ideal vantage point for last week’s significant drugs bust off the coast at Courtmacsherry, as it transpires.It was the ocean vista that lured a couple with medical backgrounds living in Cork city, the late Kay and Tom Burke, to buy Faill An tSrutáin decades back as a holiday home after it had also been a holiday home for a UK family before them, and extended family of the Burkes say the passings by of all sort of marine craft, including transatlantic vessels, as well as basking sharks is an engaging activity, with binoculars, a telescope, or the naked eye.Now that it’s for sale, might it instead go to full-time occupancy? There’s every chance, as its appeal is considerable for the right buyers.First up, it’s coastal, yet within an hour of Cork city and airport, with picturesque beaches and slipway to the west at Barry’s Cove (sort of a local treasure) with lots of beach at low tide, disappearing on a swell. To the east is the vast sandy expanse of Moloney’s strand, again a different kettle of fish when tides come in, and a drive around that inlet leads on toward Dunworly (also spelled Dunworley), or with routes back to Timoleague (8km), then on to Bandon, Courtmacsherry, and Kinsale.Go the other direction, and Clonakilty’s about a 20-minute spin, via Ring and via even more backroads.The sea is only a field or two away from this older era, long farmhouse-style house with its distinctive box dormers fore and aft, with a cleft in the high shoreline indicating possible caves to explore by kayak (mind the basking sharks and seals), in separate farm ownership and grazed, with a handful of homes in a land cluster just west, and another one-off neighbour to the east, but all are pretty much out of sight, or earshot: there’s a lot of privacy coming with this property.Listed this July as an executor sale with estate agent Brian Olden of Cork city-based Cohalan Downing with a €475,000 AMV, Faill An tSrutáin is on 1.65 sloping acres with a mix of soft and hard landscaping, with wending pathways amid roses, hydrangeas, palms, and ferns.The latter ‘hard’ landscaping includes scraped back stone/gravel beds, steps, and paths in one section with a route up from the house to an even more elevated viewing perch where there’s a shining, polished steel sculpture of a razor clam set in the ground, done by sculptor and Crawford Art College graduate Don Cronin who has a studio in Innishannon and work in a number of private and public collections: it’s found a calm base here.Access to Faill An tSrutáin is down a relatively steep private drive with chicane bend, ending by the house gable where there’s a roller door to a garage/store, and turning area, with a paved patio/terrace then running up along the long facade of the low-slung dormer home to a mid-point main entry, next to a sun room.Inside, all is essentially one room wide, with three principal rooms one after another about 13ft wide, under exposed joist ceilings showing floor boards above, and the scene stealer is the wide, traditional inglenook open fireplace in the main, around 22ft by 12ft, living room with large wood burning stove under an immense timber lintel, edged in copper, taking up a big section of internal exposed stone wall.There’s access to a sun room with vaulted ceiling here via glazed internal doors, and the hall with staircase serves also as a dining room for casual dining at a round table.The kitchen is cosy, thanks to an oil-fired Aga, and the kitchen is decorated with Aga-branded ware. Also at ground level is a guest WC, and utility, with rear access, as well as internal access to the attached garage, useful as it stands, but ripe for repurposing to a higher end with extra glazing: might new owners upgrade?Upstairs, Faill An tSrutáin has three bedrooms, the ones at the ends are the larger and one’s en suite, and views out are lovely. Bedroom three is small, more study or child-size, as the back of the house has the long access corridor which also serves the main bathroom with bath/shower, and ceilings are varnished timber (pine) sheeted.The c 1,300sq ft home has been very well minded and much appreciated down the years (the garden just got a major clean up) and new owners can just move in and get to know the gardens, how much of them they want to maintain/enhance or leave a bit wild and feral, and there’s already a simple glasshouse for potting plants, growing fruit, herbs, vegetables - handy as the grounds are naturally exposed to all weather: watching storms here could be fun too.Others with bigger budgets might want to make changes, open it up more and expand, add more glazing and perhaps up the E2 BER, all subject to planning approval as the setting is sensitive, especially when seen from the sea, but the pleasant drive from Ballinglanna along Lislevane’s headlands shows a number of moneyed new builds, and rebuilds. VERDICT: A sweet and lovely home, in a quieter, less celebrated West Cork setting that is all the better for being ‘under the radar’.

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