A warship steams across the bay at about 15 knots. It’s a formidable sight through the lens of Edward Fitzmaurice’s telescope, even when it’s only an Irish navy patrol boat on the lookout for drug smugglers off the south coast of Cork.
Watching ships is just one of the diversions available to Edward and his wife Anne at their weekend home at Dirk Cove, near Galley Head in west Cork. As a pair of grey seals get up to watery frolics in the cove, it seems a million miles from the hurly-burly of business life in London, where Edward and Anne both work, he in retail and she in banking. But weekends at their futuristic hideaway are conveniently close.
“Door to door it’s about four hours for us from Hampstead to here,” says Edward. “If you book early enough, you can get return flights for about £40.”
Dirk Cove is about 15 minutes by car from the village of Clonakilty, which is in turn about 40 minutes’ drive through the undulating countryside from Cork international airport. “We used to come to this part of the country quite a bit and we thought about maybe buying an old place and extending it a bit, pretty much what we have done here,” says Edward. “The idea was to find a holiday home that would eventually become somewhere to retire to.”
The Fitzmaurices used The Property Finders, whose Irish office is run by English expat Stephen Jeffery. The service involves an initial signing-on fee of £600 and 2.5% of the purchase fee of a property is payable on the completion of any successful deal. The Fitzmaurices viewed 10 west Cork properties in a day and settled on Dirk Cove. What they bought for £218,000 bore little resemblance to what is there now.
Advertisement
Their house, originally a coastguard station, consisted of two buildings, a 19th-century farmhouse-style cottage and a boathouse and jetty from around the same period. The whole thing sits on two acres of sea frontage.
The couple engaged Dublin-born architect Niall McLaughlin, who had worked on the refurbishment of their 1970s mews house in Hampstead and projects as diverse as City Hall in Cork and a Carmelite monastery in Kensington in London. “We knew what we wanted, which was simply to maximise the views, let in as much light as possible and build a large living space,” says Anne. “Niall spent days here taking measurements for where the sun was at certain times so he could work out the exact orientation of the building.”
Planning permission didn’t prove too difficult, once McLaughlin had provided a scale model to the local authority, which had trouble deciphering his futuristic- looking drawings. It took about four months to get the go-ahead from Cork county council. The most difficult part, according to the Fitzmaurices, was finding a builder who understood the project as well as being able to quote around the £350,000 budget. The project took more than three years to complete and ran over budget by about £70,000.
McLaughlin’s plans connected the two existing buildings on the site to a new, third building with two hallways. The original cottage has been transformed into a master bedroom suite. The main sleeping area takes up most of the original floorspace and has a cathedral ceiling, taking advantage of the entire height of the original building.
At the southern end of the master bedroom is a large en-suite bathroom. The bath is sunk into a concrete plinth positioned at the gable end of the building and has a window positioned to allow sea views while bathing. Over the bathroom is a study that looks out to the bay and is reached by stairs.
Advertisement
The former boathouse has been converted into the guest accommodation. A guest bathroom with a “shower with a view” is sandwiched between two bedrooms. Cleverly, the short hallway between the master suite and guest bedrooms has fitted wardrobes and can be closed off for use as a dressing room.
The longer hallway connects the original buildings with the modern section of the house and the front door. Its south-facing side is glass from floor to ceiling, while the north-facing wall has storage units running its entire length, one of which houses the boiler for the underfloor heating and other utilities.
The main “extension” is a wedge-shaped trapezoid with few regular angles. It incorporates the kitchen, living and dining areas and looks out to sea through a double-height floor-to-ceiling window. The roof extends 8m over the water and a retaining wall was built in front to halt erosion.
Inside, the living area has a rubber floor with tiny mica chips and underfloor heating. A concrete dining table and benches and a kitchen island unit have been incorporated. The sitting area has access to the garden and the shore.
The kitchen area is part of what the architect called a “pod”. The cooker, oven, fridge and other appliances are set into this irregular-shaped box-like unit, inside of which a utility room is hidden away.
Advertisement
“We have become very popular with friends and relatives since the place was finished,” says Edward. “Most weekends we come down we have guests. We rarely go into Clonakilty except for supplies, although there are some good restaurants.”
While the couple say they would never sell the place, Jeffery reckons he could get at least £1m for it now: “I would have absolutely no problem selling this. I reckon one or two phone calls would do it. You couldn’t get a place like this today for less than £350,000 these days, and that’s before the building work.”
The Property Finders, 00 353 234 6688, www.thepropertyfinders.com