Model Farm Road's €1.995m Branscombe is bigger and better than ever
If you think Branscombe looks familiar, think again, or maybe blink again, because this house was last for sale as recently as 2019, but it has been so substantially rebuilt that it’s no longer the same house.Branscombe is now nearly twice the size, has been utterly updated inside and outside, gets a rare A1 BER endorsement, and is in walk-in condition, which is a rarity in this mature, older housing area of settled Bishopstown.And Branscombe’s value has doubled along with its size.Sharing its name with a seaside village in England’s Devon, Cork’s Branscombe — No 22 Bishopstown Avenue — is a mid-20th century detached family home that is selling for €1.995m.In 2022, the owners did a full, top-to-toe refurb, upgrade, and extension and went flat out on high-end finishes and flourishes. Money wasn’t spared.When Branscombe last featured here, in 2019, it was a well-set five-bed detached home of 158 sq m/1,730 sq ft on a quarter-acre garden and was priced at €750,000.At that time, the house needed to be upgraded and was dated (the BER hadn’t been done at the time of editorial), but it was not short of viewings or bidding, not least because of the location, just off the Model Farm Road and at the back of the Cork University Hospital campus.The Price Register shows that Branscombe made €800,000 and the buyers, now its vendors, are a family who have experience of several previous home overhauls in London, and who have another Cork project in mind.The woman of the house project-managed the work, having used the design services of Camilla Botto, of Ballincollig-based DL Group, consulting engineers for the planning.The outcome is that what was a solid detached house has almost doubled in size, with a substantial single- and double-storey rear extension capitalising on the westerly aspect to the back.Branscombe was originally a five-bed house with main bathroom and separate WC.Today, despite its growth in square footage, it’s a four-bedroomed home, with two of those beds en suite and one with a walk-in robe, plus new main bathroom with twin sinks; during the considerable rebuild, the main staircase was also moved to the side of the house, so as not to be the first thing one encountered when coming into the centrally-placed hall.The house has considerably more floor area at ground level, with a large, open-plan kitchen/living/dining area — double aspect and about 31’ by 18’ — to the back, with an overhead roof light, and three sets of glazed double doors to the limestone-paved sun-trap patio, with further patio access from a wider set of glazed doors from a snug off the kitchen.The front of the house has twin reception rooms left and right of the hall, a drawing room with period-style fireplace and a smaller study, facing one another with sliding pocket division doors. Then, as well as this decent allocation of space and rooms, there’s a pantry off the kitchen, and a guest WC.To the side of the house, there’s a compact suite of other, small rooms, with external access. They include a kitchenette, home office, and a shower room, with access back to the hall through the latter.Selling is Johnny O’Flynn, of Sherry FitzGerald, who prizes his €1.995m listing at the city end of the Model Farm Rd as being on a “highly private, mature, west-facing site in the much-sought-after western suburbs of Cork City”, adding that it “effortlessly combines space, privacy, and convenience”.Cork companies and suppliers were used in the main for things like the stairs, floors, kitchen, and upholstery, with the more unusual pieces, like rugs and lights, sourced more widely, including the kitchen’s feature light fitting by Los Angeles-based designer Martyn Lawrence Bullard.Station House Interiors did all the cabinetry, including wardrobes, the pantry, the kitchen and utility, with painted units topped with pale quartz, and there’s an antique-style Qooker tap for instant boiling water, a Smeg range, and other appliances, plus overhead roof light.Also extensively noted are the banks of plantation shutters on so many windows, while external windows and doors are by Irish company/importers Woodmarq, with internal doors by Aherla-based Southwood.Helping get this c 75-year-old house up to an A1 BER are the glazing, insulation, air-to-water heating with underfloor heating, and a heat-recovery ventilation system thrumming away in the background.The expenditure in 2022 continued outdoors with landscaping on the considerable-sized grounds, the limestone-paved front drive, the even more substantially paved rear patio with larger flags, planted with the likes of Portuguese Laurel, and feature Photinia Red Robin, while the far corner of the rear garden is home to a good-sized, stand-alone room/studio, with WC.Since Branscombe last was on the market, in 2019, and sold for €800k as a do-er-up, values on Bishopstown Avenue and the Model Farm Rd have only risen, with two at c €1.25m and one, Clancoole, at €1.48m last year, while late in April, Robinscourt — a large, 3,640 sq ft detached house on half an acre on the Model Farm Rd — got listed at €1.85m.Might one, or the other, or both, breach €2m?
VERDICT: Branscombe’s trump card is its all-done, walk-in order condition, on private grounds, and with options for uses in the quite self-contained side home office with external access.
