HOPEFULLY it isn’t ominous – but the dining room lightshade hanging over the table at yacht designer Rob Doyle’s design-savvy home is a design called Titanic. On the plus side, the sleek, long light has been in place for quite a few years, unlike that fateful ship.
Naval architect Doyle is one of the key personnel with Ron Holland Design – one of the world’s top yacht and boat designers, who’s been working from a Kinsale base for decades, pioneering craft from under 50 feet to over 200 feet, and to over €50 million in value. Their latest boat, the 190-foot Ethereal, for internet guru Bill Joy, is reckoned to be the most technologically advanced, energy efficient and first carbon-neutral SuperYacht in the world.
Houses, in contrast, are a piece of pie. Rob Doyle, with his wife Emma Duane, came across Farm Cottage, at Acres by Ringone, just upriver of Kinsale, about eight years ago, and have transformed what was a traditional dwelling into a far larger, and more interesting and comfortable, family home, on a sublime one-third of an acre site. Since they started work on the rural, valley-set country house with contemporary twists, they’ve been joined by three-year old son Beau, and now seven-month old Rio.
And, even though their house is fully finished out, and with some very fine details and clever quality touches, Emma and Rob are keen to build from scratch, despite the fairly full-on demands of work and family. They’ve got youth on their side, and after the full makeover and extension jobs evident at Farm Cottage, they’ve now got experience as well (and a good household goods’ contacts book, to boot).
Future-proofed Farm Cottage, with its tecchie extras hidden behind an interior slickness, is now about 1,800 sq ft, with three bedrooms and bright open living spaces. Curiously, thanks to high ceilings and lots of roof lights/Veluxes, the recently added back portion seems almost brighter than the front, south facing section.
Farm Cottage comes up for sale with Kevin Kelleher of Keane Mahony Smith Kinsale and Sheehy Brothers, guiding €495,000, which places it well within the grasp of many – and it is cheaper than many a boat, too.
The original house was gutted, down to a few walls and then re-roofed, in two valleyed sections. The main front section in beyond the Liscannor stone porch with its extra wide teak door (designed by Emma) is for living, cooking and eating.
There are views from all of the windows south down to the amphitheatre-like garden with its graveled terraces, and beyond there’s a deep, wooded valley. Even further directly south, out of sight but not sound, is the Old Head lighthouse, whose booming fog horn can be heard at night.
Flooring throughout Farm Cottage is solid walnut, skilfully laid, doors are also walnut and joinery firm Rosewood also did the walnut for the door frames and architraves. Keeping the materials palette simple, and suave, kitchen worktops are either double-thickness walnut, or glistening dark granite. Kitchen appliances are, for the most part, by chic design-led firm Smeg. Scene stealers in the kitchen/dining room, though – funnily enough – are the steel high-performance Bisque Seta radiators, with rounded pepper pot – car makers Porsche had a hand in their design.
At the living room end, the piece de resistance is the spherical solid fuel Focus stove, in forged steel by French designer Dominique Imbert. It turns to a real ball of fire when lit.
Up a few steps from the main living spaces is a return level rear hall, with high ceilings and feature lighting, a mix of LEDs and recessed downlighters: this level is home to a guest bedroom (bed three) and an even larger main family bathroom with a stand-alone double ended acrylic bath sitting in a wenge cradle, and opposite is walk-in over-sized Image shower cubicle, with teak seat, and drenching rain shower head (water is from a private well, U/V treated and softened.) This bathroom’s floor is marble, heated under foot making it real creature-comfort space.
Taps and other plumbing fitting are Hans Grohe, as they are in the compact bathroom upstairs on the main first floor level, which is home to two large dormer bedrooms with gable windows and rear-facing Veluxes. Floors up here are also well-finished walnut, as is the slender stairs, where even the treads serve a structural function, set off by LED lighting.
Farm Cottage is a bit of a find, a country home a nice bit out of the ordinary, in a super-quiet setting yet only a few miles from Kinsale and from Sandycove and beaches. It is reached down the end of a long, well-tended farm boreen, with ringing sycamore, ash and pine trees, and plenty of graveled parking and play areas, as well as lawns and beds. Anchor dropping time, anyone?
a d v e r t i s e m e n t
This appeared in the printed version of the Irish Examiner Saturday, August 21, 2010
