Earls Well that ends well for ex-€1bn bankrupt developer John Fleming and his buyers?
JUST two years after moving to Ireland and buying a brand new home in a semi-rural setting, the young family at Waterfall’s Earls Well (started 20 years by developer John Fleming, pictured here), who’s back building in Cork city having gone mega high-rise in London, as exclusively reported in the Irish Examiner this week) are retracing their steps: all 11,000 kilometres of them.Fota opportunity? Earls Well's original developer at his Fota Island Resort in 2008They are set to jet a quarter way back around the world for new job opportunities, back to the densely populated, skyscraper city state of Singapore.Moving to Ireland from Singapore, the young Irish/German family bought 39 Earls Well new, in 2024.Earls Well is remarkably low densityNow served by a bus route, once-rural Waterfall developed a reputation for big one-off homes on country sites from the 1980s: it was, and still is, much favoured by CUH medics and UCC academics. Waterfall was then eyed up by developer John Fleming 25 years ago, initially with his c 60-house Heatherfield scheme of big, five-bed builds, later followed by the 40+ detacheds in Earls Well.No 39 mixes stone with crisp contempory looksThe location’s now, effectively, a low-density but high-end commuter suburb or city outpost, with several hundred other more homes and apartments being developed between Bishopstown and Marymount at Waterfall Heights and rolling into adjacent fields.Cookin': No 39's kitchenHeck, No 39 even has a south city ‘T12’ Eircode link to it, even though it’s a kilometre or two west of the city/county boundary, notes estate agent Michael Downey of ERA Downey McCarthy, who is handing the sale of the walk-in order 2,300 sq ft four-bed home on a 0.4 acre site.Mr Downey guides No 39 at €1.15 million, as the €1m barrier has already been breached five times atWaterfall, with two house re-sales in John Fleming’s Heatherfield making €1.05m (No 31) and €1.25m (No 38). ERA’s Mr Downey also last year got €900,000 for No 52, albeit one needed a good bit of work and freshening up.A trio of new house sales in the Fleming-starteddevelopment Earls Well have made €1m (No 34) or more. No 38 was bought new for €1.125m and No 42 fetched €1.129m, both in 2024 when the Price Register shows No 39 making an even €825,000 also in ‘24.While John Fleming had started Earls Well just prior to the ‘crash,’ with a handful of spectacular show homes, it later went into a receiver’s hands via Nama, and thelatest completing section of these crisp lookingdetacheds was carried out by O’Callaghan Properties.The buyers of No 39 made their own changes, removed one wall at the back for a more open and bright south-aspected kitchen/living/dining by a big patio, picking flooring, built-ins,sanitary ware, the very sleek all white kitchen, built in bar/coffee dock and its veined stone island by Clohane Wood Products, who also did detailing in the porch/boot room, built-ins etc.Porsche? Sorry. Porch/boot room entry levelThat main space is large, at nearly 12’ metres by six metres, and so elsewhere at ground there’s only a utility, hall/boot room and a study. The BER’s an A2, heating is air to water heat pump with heat recovery (underfloor at ground, under slate effect tile and engineered wood boards). A soft, padded carpet leads to the first floor, where three of the four bedrooms are also carpeted, and two are en suite, well-tiled with freestanding bath in the main family bathroom.For home-hunters at the ‘premium’ end of the market, there’s little to do here bar move in, do some landscaping planting, while the 0.4 acre site has had hedging planted at the boundaries so the outline’s now in place.Phoenix: John Fleming's Four Seasons visionary London renewal
VERDICT: In contrast to low-density Waterfall schemes back in the 2000s, risen-again West Cork’s John Fleming is doing Singapore-like, vertically challenging 50-storey towers in London.... Earls Well that ends well?
