Cliff-top cracker for high achievers in €695,000 Ballycotton home

 IT would be hard to keep up with the cliff top neighbour of this high-end Ballycotton home called Dunlin – it’s right next door to an award-winning real life-saver, the former RNLI life boat the Mary Stanford, saved itself from a watery fate and erected on a plinth at its ‘spiritual home’, overlooking Ballycotton Bay, island and iconic lighthouse.

Called after a small wading bird, Dunlin was built in 2008 on the site of a smaller older cottage by a woman based in Dublin, and who made a life for herself, children and grandchildren on very regular visits from the capital to East Cork coastline.

A few years after the woman made a much-loved second home by Ballycotton’s cliff walk, she was joined by an unlikely new arrival, the lifeboat the Mary Standford which saw service operating out of Ballycotton from 1930 to 1959, saving 122 lives across 420 call-outs.

As well as the crew, the 30 tonne boat itself got a RNLI gold medal for gallantry as did it crew (it the only boat ever to do so) for a 72 hour operation to save seven crew from the Daunt lightship the LV Comet off Cork harbour in 1936.

But, memory of the heroism fades as the boat was ignominiously left to languish by Dublin’s Gran Canal with plans to eventually scuttle her.

Instead a local Ballycotton committee resolved to do right by the boat, and in 2014 had it transported by road to a suitably sentinel position above Ballycotton’s cliffs where she was mounted on a plinth, painted up and freshly presented with a memorial plaque: respect.

Dunlin and the Mary Stanford have been next door neighbours since ’14: now, the boat, stays and Dunlin’s owner is upping anchor.

“She became very much part of the community, but now it’s time to sell up,” says estate agent Adrianna Hegarty of her vendor, and who starts viewings this week, with a guide price of €695,000.

That might have seemed high even a few years ago, but not any longer, not after the vogue and demand for scenically-set coastal properties took off, fuelled even further the global pandemic and making waves ever since: it’s likely to make it, and more.

Ms Hegarty has another home locally, Sunrise gone over its €550,00 AMV to €608,000 this month (it featured here a few weeks back), and she may expect some of those viewers to come ‘out the road’ to the start of Ballycotton’s famous cliff walk for a look-see her also, in the most dramatic of oceanside settings. Those likely to view include families from Cork looking for a holiday home, with the possibility of retiring down full time, as well as those from Dublin/Leinster, and indeed overseas relocaters.

Dunlin was built by local man Michael Tattan, to a very high standard, evidenced by its B2 BER and high level of bespoke finishes and joinery, while the quality of the wood-clad ceiling in the main living area with mezzanine is exceptional, says Ms Hegarty: “it’s like looking up at a boat,” she observes, adding “it’s got a combination of style, space and of course setting and location.” 

The Price Register shows 10 resales with a Ballycotton address over €500,000, and others have gone higher in the wider hinterland under different addresses, whilst a few spectacular houses have been built over the past decade, none as dramatic as the cliffside home of entrepreneur and locally born green energy investor Pearse Flynn whose local investments have put Ballycotton on a wider map with the likes of music and food venue Sea Church, among other ventures.

A short run up the cliff road from Flynn’s eyrie, and past a parking spot for those doing the cliff walk from the village toward Ballynatrasna beach, Dunlin is on a site of 0.3 of an acre on the inland side of the road/path, with a cul de sac also along one side serving a handful of other homes.

“I know the house from walking past it lots of times, but I’d no idea it was quite so special; the owner really wanted to be understated and modes about how it looks,” says Ms Hegarty, saying the site has lots of privacy, as well as several seating areas including a sunken patio which gets all day sun.

It’s surprising 2,360 sq ft, with an individual layout, with double height main living area south facing and opening to a patio in front and with bifold doors to a rear kitchen.

Also at ground are two en suite bedrooms, plus guest bathroom, while the upper floor is home to the very large main bedroom, with walk-in robe/dressing area, private bathrooms, and there’s a glass panel in the floor near a vanity table dropping light from overhead windows to the hall below, by the entry point’s solid wood double doors.

Also upstairs, by the bedroom, but separated by apex glass walls is a mezzanine seating area, overlooking the dining/living area, providing extra privacy and sound-proofing to the bedroom retreat from the open areas down underneath.

The house has a high spec, with lower ground/basement room via a second stairs (and with external access also) for a plant room and storage/pantry, handy as there’s no separate utility room by the kitchen.

Finishes are good, with oak joinery, good tiling and bathrooms, carpeted main bedroom and there’s underfloor heating (geothermal) at the ground floor’s main living section, plus solar panels.

Externally, the one-third of an acre corner site has good landscaping, raised beds, lawn, play area, decking in front for panoramic views, small seating space off the kitchen and there are two other larger outdoor seating/dining/barbecue area at far corners.

VERDICT: There’s no mistaking the setting and the ocean’s proximity, especially as there’s a lifeboat ‘washed up’ over the side boundary of Ballycotton’s Dunlin.