By Irishexaminer.com,Property Editor Tommy Barker Reports Pictures: H-Pix

Copyright irishexaminer

THERE’s a high-end finish top to bottom at 1 Greenbanks, but the owner also added one ‘bling’ item not seen in most family homes, for fun and for party nights — it’s got a dedicated champagne chiller display sink in pride of place in the one-off, vast kitchen island.

The Barazza brand champagne sink was the final indulgence at No 1, and has been well-used and appreciated when gatherings of friends and family throng the home, though now it’s up to new occupants to decide how best to use it in next hands: Prinks? Prosecco parties? Perrier water? Craft IPA’s? Ice-lolls for the kids?

It’s just one of the quirks of the immaculate detached home built in the Well Road, Douglas, grounds of a former property associated with Cork’s late, great rock and blues guitarist, one Rory Gallagher, who’d bought a 1930s home also called Greenbanks in a loving filial move for his mother, Monica in her older years.

The original Greenbanks later resold as a niche development site in 2005 for a Celtic Tiger times sum, some €2.9m — a champagne price, for sure.

The boom time bubbles went flat, and Greenbanks went on to have a chequered history of plans, crashed plans, and Nama involvement, even with individual sites offered at €850,000-€1.1m, just as sites … boom time they were, albeit temporary.

Eventually, Rockforest Homes finished four builds here at those sort of price levels initially sought for mere sites, with a fifth house nearest Douglas estuary in a different league entirely, now owned by a man in the motor trade who’d also soared high in the 2000s.

Since, No 3 Greenbanks resold for an even, recorded €1.5m in 2024; No 4 Greenbacks sold in 2022 for €1.47m (both via Savills,) and now the larger No 1 — which is the only one with second floor of living space from day one — is up for sale with a €1.65 m AMV cited by Savills’ Michael O’Donovan.

He’s selling for a family who bought No 1 ‘off the plans’ back around 2016, and who made astute changes to the ground floor layout from the get-go. They made other bespoke tweaks and, critically, they also got in two top level rooms, a gym and a home cinema in otherwise multi-use rooms of scale in under No 1’s permitted ridge height, with Velux windows behind.

Greenbanks’ own overall completion was protracted: the family was only able to move in after Christmas 2018, opting to sell up a modern home off Maryborough Hill to this far larger life chapter, moving from c 1,700 sq ft to 2,900 sq ft with a further 500 sq ft at attic/top floor level, with a quality hardwood stair bannister running around all three levels.

The Price Register shows they paid just shy of €918,000 for No 1 Greenbanks, registered as a 2019 deal, and they’d sold their previous home of 16 years for €610,000 to make the move. (That Maryborough Hill one has since resold too, within the past few months for €850,000, showing the steady rising tide in Cork’s suburban trade-up market.)

Rising tide? A number of homes on and off the Well Road and the wider Douglas area have been such strong sellers of late.

Douglas records 50 €1m+ sales, with €3m paid for Kennitt House last year on the Rochestown Road (via Savills); a renovation next to Greenbanks called Randall, made €1.195m in the last two years. That sale allowed its vendors to build a mega-sized home in part of Randall’s former grounds (now almost complete), certain to be worth well into the multi-million euro price league if ever sold.

In the meantime, a pristine period home further up the Well Road by Skehard Road, Ravenscourt House, is currently for sale, with a cool €4m price tag attached: that’s the strongest asking price for any home in the city for nearly 20 years, and is getting a very receptive response according to market sources.

Also just off the Well Road, a 1920s Arts and Crafts style neo-Tudor home, Kendalsbrae, came for sale in March on 2.25 acres, needing updates and seeking €2.95m; are champagne times back?

For those actively on the home hunt in Cork City’s upper price echelons, No 1 Greenbanks is sure to engage attention, given its location with easy access to Douglas, Blackrock/Mahon, and settled suburbs with great school options dotted about, as well as walk-in order, level of finishes (including champagne sink), extremely family friendly layout over three levels with four bedrooms (two en suite) on the mid-level, security, A2 energy rating, Carlson triple glazing, sunny rear aspect with landscaped garden, and concealed storage shed with services.

“We love a house with stories in the walls,” says the woman of the house at No 1 Greenbanks, hinting that they are moving to an older house but staying within the wider Douglas/Rochestown catchment and while what they are moving to now, with two teenagers in tow, is in excellent order “we’ll make our own mark on it”, she assures, with an appetite and aptitude for personalising a house to their spec.

The very high-end kitchen here is by cabinet maker Nick Moody from out Coachford way, and comes with in-frame units, topped with white quartz, as is the large island, fronts are hand painted, with Armac solid brass hardware, and appliances include a very slick looking Bora professional double induction hob with controls on a separate panel on the units, insinkerators in both sinks, Liebherr dual-zone wine fridge, Quooker boiling and filtered water tap, the afore-mentioned Barazza champagne sink, and wi-fi enabled Siemens silent dishwasher… which, however, probably still needs to be loaded and unloaded manually. Ah, well, bring on the robotic domestic assistants?

The T-shaped hall with discrete timber detailing has concealed storage to the back in a link to a guest WC with wallpaper over a painted dado and wainscoting, while the understairs is left open for display, currently home to a ‘collectable’ child’s 1930s replica red fire engine, bought for a boy, now clearly outgrown, but a stylish memento nonetheless.

Also at ground is a dual aspect room right of the hall, and across the way is a good-sized main living room with floor-to-ceiling corner window and inset wood-burning stove within a traditional fireplace. The vendors say they particularly like a real flame in a fire/stove, and so when speccing the house asked for this room not to have underfloor heating as they didn’t want it to overheat: that’s forward planning.

Families won’t have any complaints about what’s above, either, with a Ducon concrete floor slab between levels, where there’s a decent walk-in robe leading to an en suite in the main bedroom, a second bedroom — also to the front — is en suite too, and the main family bathroom has a bath plus shower, while the landing has a big clothes airing cupboard/bed linen store.

The top floor is under sloping ceilings with rooflights, a screened central section in the eaves houses the air handing /heat recovery unit, with two good sized rooms, one done as a home cinema with four speakers, one per corner plus large screen, and the other room is used as a home gym, with thick rubber matting to prevent thuds if weights get dropped.

A slight downside of the Ducon slab floor below means calls from parent downstairs don’t get answered from the top floor chill-out spaces: have they not heard of texts?

VERDICT: Spacious, well-built and finished inside and outside with limestone touches and plinths, all behind tall sliding electric gates with intercom/video monitor. A family home par excellence for those with the bobs — break open the bubbly?