WHAT does it mean to be part of the daily soap opera of a bumper-size family? For the parent, there are a couple of crucial ground rules: meal planning to avoid dining chaos, bathroom rosters to avoid fraught shower queues, tacit agreements about privacy and downtime and compromise.
No-one could ever claim that it was easy to rear half a dozen children, but what most would agree on is that it absolutely helps if everyone isn’t living on top of each other. Having a large house for a large number of offspring definitely has its benefits.
The mother-of-six who upped sticks and moved from her four-bed in Broadale, Douglas to Maryborough Orchard, also in the Cork City suburb of Douglas, would be the first to admit this. Prior to moving to their newly-built 5,500 sq ft (510 sq m) in the grounds of the former Maryborough House, they’d been finding things a bit of a squeeze. Matters were even less straight-forward following the birth in June 2002 of her twins, seven weeks premature, with one twin subsequently diagnosed with significant additional needs. While the extent of her needs was still evolving when the house was being built, accommodations were made in the design such as wider doors that fit a wheelchair and lots of circulation space on the ground floor, with plenty of room for a wheelchair in the large entrance hall, kitchen, and selection of reception rooms.
A €35,000 lift was installed in the house a year or so down the road, to facilitate her daughter’s movement between ground floor and first floor. There’s also a specially-adapted wet room. External modifications included the addition of a ramp, with access to the house via a side door.
With such an abundance of human interaction in the household, it was a blessing that the woman of the house had an architect that knew her and her requirements when the house was being designed, after they bought the site in 2003. In fact she had worked for more than 14 years with architect Gerald McCarthy, of Green McCarthy Stansfeld, first at his practice on the Western Road in Cork City, before moving with him to Exham House (which he designed) at the fingerpost roundabout in Douglas. Mr McCarthy, now retired, had designed the biggest home, Muir Wood, in the gated cul-de-sac of Maryborough Orchard, and he subsequently designed No 12, called Claycastle (“named after many happy years on holidays for a few generations in Youghal” the owner says), as well as one other house in the 15-home enclave.
Maryborough Orchard is one of the more exclusive addresses in Cork City, in the grounds of the former orchard of 300-year-old Maryborough House, which is now a hotel. Those who built there bought their sites, at the height of the Celtic Tiger, from hotel developer Dan O’Sullivan, the owner of Maryborough House.
It was rumoured at the time that the sites sold for values of between €250,000-€400,000 each.
When the family moved into No 12 in 2006, the whole of Maryborough Orchard “was like a big building site” the owner says, with builders and tradesmen everywhere and bespoke homes going up in every direction, all of them large, none of them the same, none of them cheap.
While she reckons that Claycastle is one of the bigger houses in the development, the biggest, as already mentioned, is 7000-8,000 sq ft Muir Wood, which sold last year for €2.4m to a Cork-based pair of medics. It’s the top price paid since 2010 for any home in the scheme, but none of the half dozen to change hands since then sold for anything less than €1m, with the exception of No 15, which sold for €950,000 in 2017. However it too breached the €1m mark when it resold four years later for c€1.3m.
Given the prices Maryborough Orchard homes command, auctioneer Jackie Cohalan has set a guide of €1.295 for Claycastle, where “the best of everything” was used in the house build, including concrete floors on each of the three floors, a concrete stairs (great for soundproofing) with mahogany on top, underfloor heating on all three floors, high ceilings, bay windows on ground and first floor, solid wood doors, skirting and architraves, generously proportioned rooms.
The owner is particularly fond of the handmade wrought iron staircase which runs up through the house from the ground floor.
She loves the room they had to manoeuvre too, over three large floors.
“We all had the space to do what we wanted and everyone had their own bedroom.
“It’s been a very social house, lots of friends over all of the time, an absolute family home, well lived-in,” she adds.
There’s no doubt seven-bedroom Claycastle can accommodate a very comfortable lifestyle.
The ground floor includes a huge entrance hall, three reception rooms, a large kitchen diner, a sunroom, bathroom and laundry room. On the first floor, two of four bedrooms share a Jack and Jill bathroom, another bedroom has an ensuite and the family bathroom is on this floor too (no need for bathroom rosters?). The large main bedroom has double doors to a balcony overlooking the tiered, landscaped rear garden, where privacy is at a premium, thanks to a plentiful supply of mature trees and shrubs and a greenbelt of planting between the rear of the house and the residential development of Elden, higher up on Maryborough Hill.
Ms Cohalan says even though it’s a relatively small garden “it’s cleverly designed, with three different levels, to maximise the available space”. Moreover it benefits from southern and western light, thanks to its orientation, she says. A patio area off the sunroom is ideal for outdoor dining.
Back indoors, the second floor (same size as the first floor) will particularly interest anyone working from home as there’s a large, dedicated office space, which the owner says is “a quiet and productive environment for work or study”.
This floor also hosts another three bedrooms, while overhead again, the attic is fully floored, with lighting, a radiator and rails for clothes storage.
Claycastle has served the large family well for the past 17 years, but with kids flying the nest now, the owner says it’s time to downsize. And while she will miss the quiet and the privacy and the security of Maryborough Orchard, she’s looking forward to a living in a house precisely tailored to her daughter’s needs, where life should be that bit easier for both of them.
“I’m actually delighted, this is a more appropriately designed home for her” says the mother.
She will however miss the neighbours and also her garden, which is looking quite lush right now, especially from her bedroom balcony.
They had it landscaped when they moved in, and it’s matured very well in the interim, with plenty of greenery spread over its tiers.
Ms Cohalan says the house is “an exceptional three-storey detached home, that offers exclusivity and privacy, while being part of a vibrant and welcoming community”.
“Moreover the location has convenient access to amenities, schools, and transportation links, ensuring a well rounded and connected lifestyle,” she adds.
Ms Cohalan is expecting interest from buyers looking for a quality trade up home in a prime residential development, in a setting that is just a couple of minutes from Douglas village.
Supersize trade-up family home in a prime location.