Schull Airs... 'n graces — if you have the €550,000

Offered possibly in time for a transfer of ownership by late summer 2021 and a lift in Irish travel restrictions is this Air Hill property called Gortavallig House, Georgian in style, and sizeable enough in its own right, with about 3,000 sq ft of 278 sq m over its two levels.

It’s priced at €500,000 by joint agents Michael O’Donovan of Savills Cork, acting with Sean Carmody of Charles P McCarthy’s offices in Skibbereen, and stands above the Copper Point development which came to market in 2008, called after a beacon on nearby Long Island and also linked to Schull and Mount Gabriel’s history of copper mining.

When launched, price hopes for Copper Point (with 53 houses to be built) were high, hoping to trade on Schull’s cachet as a holiday destination for the well-heeled from Dublin and Cork cities, and from sailors.

As it turns out, Copper Point more or less missed the boat, and sales were understandably slow, given the asking price of €550,000 for three-bed holiday homes, and €485,000 for two-beds, albeit designed to a high standard by Kiosk Architects, with construction started by Ridge Developments.

A number did eventually sell, and the Price Register shows prices ranging from €116,000 to €272,000, with partial relaunches in 2016 and in 2020.

On the wider front, the Price Register records 341 sales with a Schull address in the past decade or so, with 34 of them going over the €500,000 price level. Three show at over €1 million, but as two related to the Horse Island mix, which made €5.5m all-in with a number of houses on the 165-acre island, only one, Cuan Bán really topped ‘the Big Note.’ The former home of Irish businessman Bernie Cahill, this Colla Road property with its own pier fetched €2.1 million, before being substantially demolished and rebuilt by buyer Chris Dineen.

Meanwhile, sources say 25 unfinished houses at Copper Point were being offered off-market by Savills’ own commercial wing earlier this year, with a guide price of €3.85 million, or about €155,000 a pop, before completion works.

Gortavallig House is the second substantial period home to come to the open market in Schull in the past several years, following in the footstep of Grove House on the Colla Road. Grove House, a Victorian home with bustling past and great views, sold for very close to €1m for its owner, Swede Katarina Runske who ran it as an acclaimed guesthouse and high-end restaurant.

Grove House was bought by an Irish family, for use as a second home/holiday home initially at least, via agents James Lyons O’Keeffe, who also sold a property at Foilnamuck between Schull and Ballydehob to actor Saoirse Ronan for c €800,000.

Savills’ Michael O’Donovan says Gortavallig House is in excellent condition, with five bedrooms (one at ground level in a curved ground floor add-on) and with up to three reception rooms, plus storage.

Set behind entrance gates and pillars within Copper Point’s c six acres, it has mains services, oil heating and gets a D2 BER. The grounds of 1.03 of an acre include some older style outbuildings and planning was granted in 2017 for a further house on the acre. The joint agents say the house is in “excellent decorative order, on a private and mature site with views of Schull’s Harbour, with an array of intact original period features such as original marble fireplaces, plasterwork, and stone outbuildings.”