IT looks like the ship - or, at the very least, a small rowing boat - is about to come in for the owner of this West Cork lakeside hideaway on this, its second property market launch.

The contemporary, one-off Lake House, near Toormore, Goleen and Schull, last graced these pages back in 2016, with an identical €695,000 asking price, for a four-bed crisply detailed 2,100 sq ft home, by a man-made lake.

That was just as emerging Brexit worries unscuttled markets and confidence, at home and abroad. Good and all as Lake House was, and still is, it didn’t find a buyer at the time for its Skibbereen-born owner, designer Terry O’Driscoll, and was withdrawn from market.

Now, Lake House is back up again, as a year-long global pandemic is just the latest worry. But, perversely,  that very literal plague has lifted sectors of the Irish and international property market, especially ones in relatively remote and beautiful settings.

Here in Ireland. West Cork has already proven to be a major beneficiary, not just for native Irish home hunters looking for that elusive and much-vaunted ‘work-life balance’, but also the good life in its own right.

Since hitting the market in the past week or so, Lake House has caused its own considerable flurry of activity for estate agent Maeve McCarthy of Charles P McCarthy auctioneers in Skibbereen, who is back on the sale case once more, five years ‘down the road’ from its ’16 outing.

The turnaround in interest is close to seismic, she reports, and by the middle of this week she’d clocked over 40 strong inquiries, from far and wide, with news leaking out that it was already under offer around or even over the guide, albeit sight unseen due to Covid-19 travel restrictions.

Such offers, obviously carry a slight ‘health warning’ themselves, though some sales have fully closed out to buyers who jumped without an actual personal inspection. Sometimes, it takes a visit to really commit, or to jump ship/dinghy and bail out....

Here at Lake House, once physical visits are permitted, they are likely to cement many intending buyers' resolve. It’s that beguiling, with its appeal already testified to by its guest/visitor’s book when it has been rented out for short holiday lets.

For those who want relative seclusion, but not total isolation, it could be perfect, coming as it does as a ten-year-old build, done with aplomb on a scooped-out natural site just off the N71 by stunningly pretty Toormore along the Wild Atlantic Way.

It was designed and built by its owner, Terry O’Driscoll, who has moved from working for airlines jetting around the world to interior designer, and his work graces many West Cork homes and hotels. He was most recently seen on TV in a repeat of the Showhouse challenge in which he competed, interacting with hosts Neville Knott and Laurence Llewelyn-Bowen.

He didn’t win that challenge, but was exceptionally gracious about his rival’s designs: now, it seem he may have a bigger prize on his hands in the level of expressed demand for his singular Lake House creation.

Single storey and sleek as the rare otters that sometimes visit, it’s more muted than any TV makeover or showhouse spectacle, not needing bling to grab attention.

Here, good and all as the smartly finished house is, it plays second fiddle to the off-track moors-like, setting. 

It's a slightly elevated spot, graced by wildlife and birds especially, with generations of mallard now feeling like they have visiting right to the house: they've been fed crumbs on the projecting deck/jetty, one of two wooden structures for ducking and diving from, or for taking the punt out for short circuits on the compact, deliberately excavated lake, fed by a natural spring.

O’Driscoll found the site in 2008 when he sought to build, for the second time only,  as we wrote here back in 2016.  

“Where others would have seen a bit of bog with views, he saw pond life nirvana, the chance to build a waterfront home where hardly anyone knew there was water, courtesy of a corrie-like dip in the ground, a steady stream of water in and out, and a dark sink hole of lough water between the peaty hillocks. It’s the sort of land you’d raise grouse or pheasants on, but even grazing sheep might turn their noses up at.” 

Looks like no-one is turning up any noses now: viewers just need to turn up.

See also from 2016

https://www.irishexaminer.com/property/arid-20383093.html