At €455,000, is Rosary Place the answer to your prayers?

THE thrum of daily living was matched by tiny heartbeats at no 68 Rosary Place, where Caroline Corcoran ran her midwife and consultant lactation practice from her downstairs home office.

The house could easily accommodate the kind of private, functional space she needed to welcome expectant mums and it was one of the reasons she jumped at the chance to buy it.

“It was very important to me that there was the potential for a home office with an en-suite bathroom,” Caroline says. “I’m a home birth midwife, and I’ve been running my midwife and lactation consultant practice out of the downstairs office for many years, it’s been so convenient for the women to visit me here.”

Caroline was familiar with the house when she bought it more than five years ago, because she and her family had rented it for three years.

She says: “I was renting through a friend of a friend, until we were lucky enough to have the opportunity to buy it. From the first time we saw it, we fell in love with it.”

At almost 2,300 sq ft, it was an ideal size for a family, with generously proportioned rooms and “a great flow downstairs, from one good-sized space to the next, ideal for a family with children or teenagers, so they can have some space of their own”, Caroline says.

For a family that enjoys hosting, there’s great scope to entertain. “We’ve had some brilliant parties,” Caroline says.

No 68, a former local authority home, had already been extended when Caroline bought it. Previous owners added a two-storey, wraparound extension, including a huge kitchen/dining room and two large, en-suite bedrooms overhead, “which massively increased the size of the house”, Caroline says.

The country-style kitchen/dining room, with solid-wood flooring, is a bright, commodious space, with French doors to the rear garden on one side and a choice of two reception rooms on the other (family room; sitting room with wood-burning stove). All of this accommodation is on the opposite side of the hallway to Caroline’s practice room.

Outdoors is country-cottage style, too, with fruit trees, bushes, and lawn.

“I make blackcurrant jam and elderflower cordial every summer, and the figs are a lovely treat in the autumn,” Caroline says. “When I smell the lavender bushes by the front door, I know I’m home.”

After she and her family bought the property in Rosary Place, within a short walk of Midleton town centre, they renovated the original part of the house, without interfering with its character.

“We prioritised keeping the feel of the house warm and welcoming, and restored as many period features as we could: The sash windows, original fireplaces, and wooden floors.

“We used natural finishes, solid wood, and limestone everywhere, and decorated with different greens — either a paint colour, or a rug, or an accent wallpaper, to enhance the natural feel,” Caroline says.

Because the size of the house meant electricity bills were initially high, they focused on improving its energy efficiency, with good results, doing enough to bring it from a lowly ‘E’ rating up to a very solid B2 — enough to qualify for green mortgage rates.

“We managed to increase the BER very substantially for a 1940s home and that has halved our energy bills, without compromising the lovely period feel of the property,” says Caroline.

They were guided, too, by the desire to future-proof the house.

“The renovations were done with flexibility in mind, so my mother was able to move in.”

“We turned the downstairs office in to a bedroom, because it had an en suite wet room, which was fantastic for her,” she adds.

The option is there for new owners to retain a bedroom downstairs, if the four overhead doubles are not enough. Two of the four have en suites.

Adrianna Hegarty, of Hegarty Properties, is selling the Rosary Place home (there are two estates in the town with the same name).

“They were built in the 1940s when religious names were endemic,” Caroline says. Ms Hegarty says it’s “a substantial and beautifully upgraded” five-bed semi-d, in an enviable location, just minutes from Midleton town centre, where there’s an array of schools and retail, as well as a train station and regular bus service to Cork City, reachable in around 20 minutes.” She brings the house to market for €455,000.

“We’re sad to leave after so many years,” says Caroline, “but it’s too big for us now, and it makes us happy to think of another young family with kids running around and enjoying the space.”

VERDICT: A sizable, more affordable family home, Rosary Place could be the answer to your prayers.