Oysterhaven’s luxury property market surges as The Anchorage lists for up to €2.25m

OYSTERHAVEN is having a moment. After years of playing understudy to Kinsale, the notion of ponying up millions for a coastal home is finally making waves along the shores of Oysterhaven bay.

Less than four months ago, Kinure House, a 345sq m, shoreline-hugging home with its own slipway and dazzling vista made its asking price of €2.4m (the price register shows €2.37m, which doesn’t include all the acreage).

Just prior to that, Harvel House, the home of photographer Giles Norman, sold for €1.52m, from a guide price of €975,000.

Rewind another year, to 2023, and close to €3m was paid for Annefield House, a period gem on 5.6 acres, bought by a US buyer who lobbed in a cool extra million to secure the property, last minute, from rival bidders.

Oysterhaven house price momentum has been building since 2021, when Walton Court, a delightful Georgian country house on the waterfront, sold for €2m. Prior to that, nothing else on the bay sold for anything close to €1m in the 15-year lifetime of the price register, with the exception of The Anchorage, featured here.

In 2015, The Anchorage was bought as a holiday home by a Dublin-based couple with Cork ties on the wife’s side. The register shows it sold for €900,000.

“My wife is originally from Cork and her family has been holidaying in Oysterhaven for 40 years. We went enquiring about holiday rentals in 2015, and at the time, this house was for sale,” the owner says.

Built about 50 years ago as a permanent home and designed by architects O’Riordan Staehli, it’s a very distinctive split-level dwelling with a series of tiers that reverse into the sloping site. Bedrooms are housed in each tier and connected back to the main living space by a long, angular corridor.

“It was a very well thought out house and it functions very well. The way it was designed, it sits into the hillside, and we’ve never had any storm damage, despite its proximity to the sea,” the owner says.

The property, on 1.25 acres, has 65m of water frontage, with a pebble beach at low tide.

 A concrete driveway leads all the way from the entrance on the main road to a slipway, where there is deep water access. Steps allow easy access to the water for boating and other water sports.

The Anchorage has the distinction of being one of just a trio of homes on the entire Kinure headland with its own private slipway. Only one other home — neighbouring Kinure House — gets as close to the coastline. It’s a close call to decide which of the two has the finer site.

Both homes lie below the main road with gardens that dip towards the shore. Both look south and west, across the bay to the Oysterhaven peninsula and Pregane headland, with its sublime indented coastline, and out towards the mouth of the harbour and the Sovereign Islands.

The bay itself is sheltered and is a haven for watersports. Generations of Cork school kids have earned their sea legs in its safe confines, courtesy of Oliver and Kate Hart of Oysterhaven Activity Centre. The kids at The Anchorage were no different.

“We’d have kept a couple of boats on the water, we had moorings in the bay. We had a pontoon for the kids. You could jump in the boat and be over to the Old Head (of Kinsale) in 20 minutes, which is a lot quicker than if you had to drive there,” the owner says.

Everything that moved on the water was on view from their home, through the seaward facing, floor-to-ceiling windows of the main, cavernous, open plan living area, which is spread across three levels: Kitchen/dining to the rear; lounge at mid-level; conservatory to the front. 

A door from the conservatory leads to a large deck with 180° views of Oysterhaven bay. 

The aspect would take your breath away. You can just imagine the barbeques.

The bedrooms, each reached by four steps, “are just the right size for a holiday home”, the owner says. All have sea views and access to the garden. The main bedroom comes with en suite.

Other than maintaining The Anchorage, the family didn’t make any major changes over the years.

“We didn’t need to, it was a holiday home that we wanted to enjoy with the kids,” the owner says.

Seven years into their ownership and with the kids’ needs evolving, they decided to look at extending their 266sq m home. The initial proposal was for single-storey, flat-roofed additions to the side and rear, contemporary in character, while respecting the integrity of the original structure, with some upgrades. Glazed facades to the western side would give access to the garden and views. Planners approved the proposed changes in September 2022.

Two years and a radical re-think later, the owners applied for permission for a very different dwelling.

This time they were proposing to demolish their home and replace it with a house that was substantially bigger (by 140sq m) than what had been approved in 2022. (See virtual image).

Planners were in favour once again, saying the design by Conneely Wessels Architects (behind several showstopping Kinsale homes) was “of good quality contemporary design”. Permission for the second proposal was granted in July last year.

“We were going to push the button on it this summer but something else has come along,” the owner says, adding that he “put a lot of time and effort into the new design” with architects Lizette and Robert (Conneely).

“We had plans for wetrooms and large amounts of storage and a kids’ games room — all the kind of stuff you need to make the complete family holiday home. But other events took over,” the owner says.

Deciding whether to push the button will now be down to the next set of owners at The Anchorage, who can keep this distinctive house as is, with some upgrades (the energy rating needs a boost, it’s currently an E1) or take their pick from two separate planning permissions: to retain, upgrade, and extend the current house, or to go for a full, contemporary, fairly showstopping re-design on a 3.25 acre site.

This trio of options around what The Anchorage might look like under new owners is accompanied by a trio of options for buyers.

You can opt for Lot 1, which is the existing house on 1.25 acres, with a guide price of €1.8m.

If you go for Lot 2, which is guiding at €2.05m,just add another two acres to Lot 1, (3.25 acres in total).

Lot 3, which equals Lot 1 + four acres (5.25 acres in total), is guiding at €2.25. Selling agent Ron Krueger of Engel & Võlkers says the extra land “would provide the new owner with plenty of opportunities to make use of the extra space, subject to planning permission”. (The more ambitious of the extant permissions is for a new house on a 3.25 acre site).

Mr Krueger, the agent who was also behind the sale of neighbouring Kinure House, describes The Anchorage as “an exceptional waterfront property that affords outstanding privacy”.

For sure, it’s hidden from the road above and the only clear view of it is from the bay or from the air. Of the location, he says it’s an area of outstanding natural beauty, renowned for its dramatic coastline and unspoilt beaches.

The owner of The Anchorage agrees. “It’s a great part of the world, it’s somewhere I would never have discovered without my wife’s family,” he says.

“On a cloudless day, you are basking in sunshine from 11am to 9pm. The views are unbelievable. I didn’t realise what a hidden gem I had until after we bought it,” he adds.

Moreover, travelling down from Dublin was not a problem — once you hit the M50, there isn’t a traffic light until you come to the Dunkettle Interchange.

“We have friends in Crookhaven in West Cork and it could take you as long to get there as it took us to get from Dublin to Oysterhaven,” the owner says.

Gourmet Kinsale is a hop, skip, and a jump away, although Finders Inn in Nohoval was a favourite of The Anchorage residents. Cork Airport is 20 minutes by car.

Mr Krueger expects “a good bit of interest nationally, but also from overseas buyers”. Based on his experience at Kinure House, he expects a mix of people, some looking for a permanent home, others for a bothole. The new owners of Kinure House parted with €2.4m for a summer home.

VERDICT: Based on its neighbour's performance, and with a similar setting,  the upward price momentum on Kinure headland is likely to continue at The Anchorage. It's a unique home but its days could be numbered if new owners go with the heft and style outlined in the planning files.