Iconic Red House in Cork hits the market after stunning €1.8m restoration

THE owner of Cork’s much-loved Red House was warned by his one-time school history teacher not to muck about with this venerable era private, Leeside residence, with its many rises and ignominious dips, over more than 200 years of its history: it just about pre-dates the 1815 Battle of Waterloo.

“I met my old history teacher, Matt Foley, a few years back at a school reunion and he warned me - in the strongest possible terms - not to change its character,” says the owner, now the vendor of the c 1811 Red House. He had bought it, in a very sorry state, back in 2014 and has since very successfully reversed the ravages of time.

In fact, the language used by the retired CBC history teacher (whose family home was over on the Western Road across Wellington Bridge) was a lot stronger than “the strongest possible terms…” But, the point was made, and not lost on his former pupil, who assured his former teacher he had no intention of changing it, he just loved it, had always admired it, and wanted to rescue it.

“I knew the house for years, right back to college days in the 1990s when I lived across the road from it when it had been a family home,” says the Corkman who bought it intending it to be his own family home, having previously lived and worked in Hong Kong and the UK.

However, his family and work life now with his US-born wife and children is in Dublin, so having bought, saved and ‘lightly restyled’ the Red House at very considerable expense, and having of late rented it at the very upper end of the corporate letting scale, has decided to part ways with it, ready for its next life chapter.

Red House has been here in these Property & Home pages before, variously called No 72, Red House, and more properly Lisheen.

We wrote about it back in 2006 when it was described as a ‘Lady in Red, albeit more than slightly down at heel,’ having had the ignominy, for a period, of being lived in by squatters who’d started chopping up some of the internal timbers for the fireplace to stay warm.

Even despite its poor order of two decades back, it had carried a pre-auction guide/hope of €1.5m to €2m: this was back in roaring Celtic Tiger times when a Sunday’s Well house had set a Cork home price record of c€5m and the country was awash in (borrowed) cash.

It didn’t sell, and so sat for several subsequent years, slowly decaying and came back for sale in 2014, all boarded up, faded (pic, top right), a shadow of once-upon a time more glorious days, and sold for €450,000 to its current owner, later described in these pages as ‘a dreamer’ for the scale of what was taken on.

The couple brought the highly regarded Pat O’Sullivan of Kiosk Architects on board, and then engaged Rose Construction for the herculean task of working with a period home inside and outside, on a challenging riverside and roadside site, in red-rag order, and one which was granted listed building status by Cork City Council after their purchase.

Singled out for special protection were large ceiling roses in two of the reception rooms in the 3,800 sq ft ‘home of two halves’, part dating to the early 1800s, the other Victorian, dating to the 1860s and which at various times were used as one, and sometimes two, residences.

The older Georgian/Queen Anne era ‘half’ also has one of the conserved plasterwork roses crowning a very fine vaulted ceiling, all in any case given due regard as was the owners’ and architects’ intentions in any case. (The vendors had previous experience of house renovations in older era homes in London and in West Cork.) 

Post the 2014 purchase, it took a few years before work could start at Lisheen/aka No 72, also previously West View Cottage, and later West View Villa (and ‘the Red House’ to the rest of us.) Its latter, finishing up staged, were after a certain global pandemic hit, with covid adding to timelines, materials and build costs and restrictions.

As well as using Kiosk Architects for the salvation and rebirth of Red House, the couple got full planning for a Kiosk-designed c 1,700 sq ft ultra contemporary one-off in a side garden on the property’s overall c 0.25 acre site, and this was offered for sale in 2022 with a €475,000 AMV.

Now, more practically, both the site with its positive planning history and the fully reborn Red House with up to six bedrooms and understated yet high-end finishes, top to bottom under a wholly-new roof down into a lower part-basement are rolled into the one package, with a €1.825m guide cited by agent Johnny O’Flynn of Sherry FitzGerald.

Mr O’Flynn knows that he is selling a Cork classic, in a hallowed city suburb much valued by medics and other well-heeled professionals and where older era homes now tend to get very costly upgrades when and if selling on.

The Price Register shows a half a dozen with a Sundays Well address selling for between €1m and €2.2m, with the boom time era €5m Woodlawn showing as a 2016 resale at €2.195 million.

The house immediately downriver of Red House, The Hollies, sold in 2016 for a recorded €800,000 and has since had a very costly makeover: the setting right on the river is what makes these one-offs of the Georgian and Victorian eras so highly prized.

Red House has possibly the very best or most engaging of River Lee/Sundays Well views, not just from the grounds but from the inside as well: look west/upriver and you see Wellington Bridge/Thomas Davis Bridge and County Hall; look downriver and you see the iconic Shakey Bridge/Daly’s Bridge: Cork’s Red House is almost as iconic.

“At one stage during the work we had thought about changing the colour to more of a pink, but while we were doing the work the architects started getting letters from neighbours and members of the public saying they hoped it was going to stay red, and of course it has,” say the owners who could have had red blood on their hands if they veered of the original bolder lipstick red colour at this true on-off.

The man behind Red House’s full-blooded 21st century restoration and conservation says the first lease they got sight of was in 1804, between a Rt Hon Richard Edmund St Laurence and James Bonwell; then, a 90 year lease between the Earl of Cork and Ossery and a William Newman; next, in 1892, it was leased to a Dominick Daly by Viscount Dungarvan: “I loved history and had a great history teacher,” says the 2025 vendor, still possibly afraid of being haunted by a certain history teacher, living locally…..

Sherry FitzGerald’s Johnny O’Flynn chimes in on the sale now to say “seeped in history and known by Corkonians as “The Red House”, West View Villa is an imposing five / six bedroom detached waterside home, with so much space, it is hard to believe just how centrally located in Cork City you are.”

He says home work done here was meticulous, blending charm and originality with modern-day comforts, and captivating views from just about every room, with a large double garage with remote control access for off-street parking and a private garden on three sides, landscaped by designer Sean Russell.

There are some pressed metal interventions in vertical bay window treatments, one on the main river-and Mardyke facing facade, the other horizontal in the top floor span corridor, with timber sashes also, most with original window shutters.

The flooring consists of solid timber, reclaimed and Victorian-style tiles (sourced in Toledo, Spain), slate and cast iron insert fireplaces, a contemporary two-tone kitchen by Clohane Wood Products Skibbereen, and bathroom and sanitary ware from Bert & May, London.

There are up to six bedrooms (two with en suites) and masses of storage on all levels, including a steady-temperature lower ground-level pantry/wine cellar and basement store, twin gas boilers, alarm, and CCTV, among the 21st-century adaptations to a 220+-year-old Cork icon.

Selling agents Sherry FitzGerald add “it’s exceptionally rare that properties like this come to the market… even more so ones that have been so meticulously restored to such a high standard.”

VERDICT: The only thing a new owner might want to do is change the colour… if they want to be run out of town, before they ever get to unpack.