Some locations are just so lovely that, rather than move, owners make their houses grow to fit and fill them. Having said that, you’d need to do an awful lot of growing to fill the almost 63ha (155 acres) that encompass pretty much the entire townland of Ballygriggan. People have tried. The original building where Ballygriggan House now stands, was an old-style farmhouse, but was added to in the 1820s. The owner points out a fanlight on the east façade, where the front door would have been, almost 200 years ago.
When the current owners bought the house in 2000 they built on again, adding formal rooms in the Georgian style, in keeping with the earlier addition, and turning the house around again, to face west, and make the most of evening sun and the mature trees from that aspect.
The family had come from Yorkshire, where they had had a Georgian house, so they took inspiration from the best features of that, to seamlessly knit the various parts together and make a family home that can expand to meet the needs of a large family.
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“It just sort of grew,” the owner says in what is a rather brilliant understatement. In that growing, they paid attention to detail, including having the marble fireplace in the drawing room (a lovely room with dual aspect and French windows to the garden) copied from an original design. Antique doors and other fittings were also sourced.
“I’ll hate leaving,” she says. But with 770sq m (8,200sq ft) of living space, including seven bedrooms and six bathrooms, she’s regretfully, but inevitably downsizing. “It is rather big, but when all the children and grandchildren come, it’s not so big . . . ”
In addition to the spacious elegance of the house, there’s more of the same for horses, one of the owner’s loves. The present residents graze happily under trees in lush fields, visible from the bedroom. There’s an all-weather arena, and you can see the stables and barn too.
"It's very good land," says the owner. "Limestone, well drained. Mallow is on one side, and Fermoy on the other, so it's very convenient, and Castletownroche, which has really good amenities, is a walk or short drive away." Bounded on two sides by the River Awbeg, there's trout fishing, and lovely riverside walks.
The owners have also restored a ruin on the land to create the North Lodge, a three-bedroom house, with its own walled cottage garden. Back in the main house, the owner’s favourite rooms are the drawingroom and lounge.
“They’re wonderful rooms, but then again it is just one of those houses. People come in and immediately feel at home here. There’s the surroundings, the mountain views, the greenery, I don’t know what it is.” Joint agents Ganly Walters and Michael H Daniels are asking €2.45 million for Ballygriggan House.
