What's in a name? Cork's Hilton home in posh setting has €990k asking price

A BIG house, on a big site, in a top location — little wonder is it that Brackwood has a price tag just under the €1m mark, what with what’s here, where it is, and what might be added to it?

Likely to be c 50 years old by now, Brackenwood is a 3,200 sq ft detached family home on a corner site inside in Hilton, a cul-de-sac address off Cork city’s Model Farm Road, where resales have ranged from €500,000 to over €1.5m in the past decade or so.

Not only do the homes here carry a premium value: so too do their gardens./sites, especially if big enough to allow the development of a second home on a portion.

The best-known example of this was when rugby’s Ronan O’Gara’s parents Fergal and Joan O’Gara built a contemporary-designed home 20 years ago in the former gardens of their Hilton bungalow home called Fahan, next door to Brackenwood.

What are the prospects for Brackenwood, now an executor sale for the family of a medical/dental professional man who had canny and extensive property and business investment in Cork?

It was home to a family of six children and is big as it stands, at over 3,200 sq ft with attic/dormer level rooms as well as a big single storey, older era ground floor extension on its left hand side, plus two attached garages on the far side, each with roller doors for access.

But, big and all as the house is, as much of an attraction is the site/gardens size: it’s put at almost 0.6 of an acre by auctioneer Frank Walsh of O’Mahony Walsh who says it allows plenty of space and options for further conversion, extension or even seeking planning at some future time for a further dwelling.

He launches Brackenwood at €990,000, noting that a single site here for a one-off new build could command prices of €450,000 or even €500,000, and adding that several new developments on the Model Farm Road have seen prices go up to and over €1 million.

Examples of A-rated new builds topping are at the likes of Vailima and Merton at the city end of the Model Farm Road, and the road itself has almost two dozen home sales in excess of has almost two dozen home sales in excess of €1 million, both new and second hand, with more to come. Sources say Ruden Homes; scheme The Hermitage Farm (some 33 homes in all) will have detacheds coming in excess of €1 million too.

Complete with swimming pool, Tanglewood was a 5,000 sq ft home deep within Hilton, on a 0.8 acre plot, and it sold for €1.57 million (it had also featured in these pages in 2006 when it had a €1.2m price tag.) A new home, called Rosbrin, designed to an Edwardian palette, now sits on the front portion of Tanglewood’s original 0.8 acre of grounds.

This end-of-year offer, Brackenwood, is a well-kept and pretty substantial family home, with up to six bedrooms, most at ground level, with three dormer level rooms reached up a quality, bespoke spiral stairs in several timbers, coiling up from the dining room, with a good mix too of daytime/ground level living rooms.

There’s a wide hall, hardwood flooring, several rooms have parana pine timber sheeted ceilings, and the kitchen has a mix of tile and timber flooring, and it links in a sort of open plan mix to a family sitting room, with wood-burning stove.

It come with three bathrooms, one’s an en suite with the main, ground floor double bedrooms and the principal family bathroom is extensively tiled, with a large bath in a tiled hearth, along with a large double shower.

There’s an E2 BER right now, the rear faces west and the side extension wraps on its southern side.

VERDICT: Substantial home in a top western suburb, much favoured by medics, with many options for next occupants, who may chose to upgrade, to reconfigure, or to build anew on the side, subject to planning.