Is this Cork’s safest house? Defence Minister Micheál Martin is a neighbour

LOOKING for a ‘safe house?’

They hardly come any safer than 17 Silver Manor, a detached hideaway home in Cork’s Ballinlough/Ballintemple with the equivalent of State-supplied security: former Taoiseach, and current Tánaiste, and Minister for Foreign Affairs plus Defence Minster Micheál Martin lives practically on the doorstep, with a garda presence a regular feature in this south Cork city suburb.

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Garda cars get stationed on the Ballinlough Road by the entrance to the Ballinlough Road and Silver Manor, a c 1990 niche development of mostly semi-detached brick-faced homes, with No 17 a sole stand-alone detached, on an enlarged corner site, is itself already extended, and has been constantly upgraded, and its garden meticulously planted, and minded with pristine patios, pond, pathways dotted with trees, shrub and fruit bushes, as well as private areas and garden rooms galore.

It’s been home to someone with green fingers, an artistic temperament, a yen for home improvement with an eye for quality salvage materials and antiques, and is back on the market after a six year hiatus, with a BER now brought up to a B3 also.

No 17 Silver Manor featured here in 2018, price guided then at €690,000, but the owners took it off the market shortly after unsold, and the Price Register shows no resales at all at Silber Manor in the last 12 years, so it seems one of those ‘locations for life (just cropping up on the Price Register in the last month is 7/Lynbar, a detached in Shrewsbury Downs a few hundred metres away off the Ballinlough Road at a strong €1.25m via Barry Auctioneers).

Now, No 17 Silver Manor is back, better than ever, guided at €775,000 by agent Cearbhall Behan of Behan Irwin Gosling and – without trying to inflame an already hot local suburban market – that seems pretty decent seeing what’s being paid in the area for quite standard but well-presented three-bed semis of lesser size, and standard gardens?

Could it be because Silver Manor flies under the radar? Despite having one of the country’s most accomplished political leaders as a neighbour?

Certainly the entrance to Silver Manor is discrete, fringed in mature greenery, much of it on the boundary of No 17, which got the chance to enlarge its site to the side when the corner with Churchyard Lane was being reordered.

No 17 is tucked away in every sense of the description, with the likes of Cork Con RFC, Páirc Ui Rinn, Ballinlough GAA and Beaumont (quarry park) on the doorstep as well as the Silver Quay bar/restaurant, local chipper Dennys, other services plus schools while Ballintemple village (and the Marina) and Mahon Point Shopping Centre are close to hand too.

No 17 (also called Lageneeve, after a townland near the Lee Valley’s Inchigeelagh) is quietly stand-out, with four first floor bedrooms (one en suite) and has a larger ground floor than upper level, with extension to the side (sun room) and back, with open plan/linked kitchen/dining/living, and materials include quality timbers like an elm kitchen, old brick, vintage pine doors, tiling that won’t date, and even its boundary walls and pillars are capped with limestone.

Add in a quality décor (think country house feel and flair) lots of parking, security, knowledgeably planted gardens that aren’t hugely demanding yet were costly to populate and to propagate, and a location close to open spaces and playing pitches and, well, it could be one of the better value buys of the summer.

VERDICT: Worth your No 1 vote, for a safe and homely transfer.