Builder’s 25m Builders €2 Home On Former Cork Will Bid Family Prized Grounds

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Thu, 07 Nov, 2024 - 06:30

Tommy Barker, Property Editor

A PRIVATE wooded garden site of 1.62 acres on the city end of the Cork’s Douglas Road is likely to draw developer interest to The Poplars — and that could be apt as the lands it was built on was privately owned for years by the late Denis McCarthy, a house builder very active in Cork’s southside suburbs in the 1960s and 1970s.

Architect-designed The Poplars was built in the grounds of the former Villa Nova period home, demolished over 60 years ago by the late Mr McCarthy who then built a new ‘Villa Nova’ in its stead, on over five extremely private acres, between the main Douglas and Ballinlough roads, within a mile of the city centre and just past St Finbarr’s Hospital, opposite the old Nemo Rangers GAA pitches.

Part of the original Villa Nova grounds got developed in the 1990s by a family member, as Bellair Close, a mix of apartments and duplexes, at the top of the Bellair Estate, which was done by Denis McCarthy back in the 1960s.

Another family member lives in the ‘new’ Villa Nova, to the back of the tree-screened and utterly private grounds, while The Poplars was built in the 1990s by a daughter Adelaide (Addie) McKeown (nee McCarthy) and her husband Paddy McKeown in 1990, designed by Magee Creedon architects.

The 2,300 sq ft The Poplars occupies the front portion of the combined McCarthy/Villa Nova acres of grounds, set behind electric gates at the very old, splayed stone entrance and pillars just on the Douglas side of Bellair Estate, with a winding approach avenue. The walled grounds include an old stone arch by Knockrea as a reminder of the site’s original garden period dwelling.

While it is offered primarily for sale as a detached family home in a top suburb where the most recent ‘sale agreed’ of a single dwelling Sans Souci exceeded its €2.2m launch guide in rapid time, it’s as likely to attract a buyer keen to develop new housing on the balance of the 1.62 acres.

Subject to planning, it could fit a scheme on the scale of Bellair Close at the other end of Bellair Estate, or go for a small number of substantial one-off/detached houses in an exceptional, ‘settled suburban’ setting.

Feltrim, on the Blackrock Road, is being sold for the SMA religious order, understood to be sale agreed at c €6 million

Comparable sites might include Feltrim on the Blackrock Road, where the large period home Feltrim on three acres being sold for religious order the SMA is under advanced negotiation, understood to be at c €6m; 0.85 of an acre behind Parkhurst on the Victoria Rd, offered last month at €1.55m; the Whitaker family’s several acres between the main and south Douglas Rd, and a just-completed niche scheme in Douglas’ Hettyfield Gardens, with detacheds offered at close to €1m.

A few doors away from The Poplars, a private buyer is understood to be paying over €2.2m for the contemporary home San Souci, some 3,000 sq ft which replaced an older version, bought in 2018 for €765,000 and demolished.

Buyers at The Poplars could also be a private family keen on a home on extremely and rare extensive grounds and upgrade/extend the 30+year old home (it will feature in this Saturday’s Property & Home pages) or build a number of houses here, as two generations of the McCarthy family have alongside at Bellair, without impinging too much on Villa Nova’s original grounds.

DETAILS: ERA Downey McCarthy 021-4905000