Buying Kilmahon House was a 2004 act of faith on the part of vendors Mary and Jeremy. It was also a new beginning, a break with their London life and, Mary is convinced, destiny.
With Jeremy in remission from a serious cancer, achingly aware that, “life is short” the couple decided on a “new focus”. They were looking for an old property to renovate when, by accident on the last day of a visit home, Mary came upon Kilmahon House.
In September that year they began five a five-year job of bringing new life to the property.
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“We ripped out the insides,” Mary explains, “every ceiling and wooden lintel. We chiselled back to original plaster on walls. That took 2 ½ years. We spent another 2½ putting it together again, living there while moving a lightbulb around with us.”
When they'd finished (with engineer/builder Daniel Ryan as guiding force) they'd created a 440sq m (4736sq ft), two floors over garden level, light-filled home and country guest house with six en suite bedrooms, drawing room, family/tv room, study/library, dining room and kitchen/breakfastroom. It's a house which, over the years, has attracted diverse life in the form of "amazing, fascinating guests. It was a leap of faith that worked very well".
Kilmahon House, on the outskirts of Shanagarry Village, had many earlier lives.
Built in 1780 as a glebe house, it was home to the family of renowned potter Stephen Pearse from 1954-2004. A room long served as a shop for his Shanagarry Pottery and today's village has a Shanagarry Design Centre as well as Ballymaloe Cookery School.
For sale through Sherry FitzGerald Country Homes/Sherry FitzGerald O'Donovan Midleton, the asking price is €895,000.
This is a house full of light, even at garden level where the large, Aga-heated, stone-tiled, kitchen/breakfastroom looks out over the garden.
The main ground floor entrance hall has the feel of a glebe house with its slabbed stone floor and deep windows. A sitting room with timber floor is comfortably enticing; so too is a slightly more formal drawing room. A smaller room serves as a library and a second en suite bedroom has garden views. The main, first floor bedroom has a sweep of views over nearby Ballycotton Bay – all four bedrooms on this floor have fine views.
The health-giving aspects of the countryside around Ballycotton means Jeremy is in excellent shape these days. The couple will miss the house and area, but for family reasons and with manys a backward glance, need to return to the UK.
The land around has old trees and is partly bounded by an old stone wall. The house is garden surrounded, including a walled garden and orchard. A large coach house (partly rebuilt) and outhouses are ripe for conversion.
Cork city is 37km away.
