Break out the bunting; these four buildings offer a home with plenty of potential. This homestead is a renovator’s dream. It has a cut stone stable, a hay barn, a derelict cottage, and additional lean-tos, all waiting to be upgraded.
Address: Ballinara, Castledaly, Moate, Co. Westmeath, N37R1W1
Asking price: €470,000
Agent: REA Hynes
Five kilometres west of Moate in Co. Westmeath is the village of Castledaly, where there is a local pub, GAA pitch, playground, and community centre.
On its outskirts is a cut stone homestead with oodles of potential if you’ve any building industry skills.
The house, a detached longhouse, is set on about three acres with a myriad of outbuildings that could be developed or used as studios or short lets.
The main house has been sympathetically renovated and upgraded while maintaining its rustic soul.
There are bare stone walls and thick timber lintels, but the house has a C2 Ber-rating.
There is underfloor heating at ground level, run by oil-fired central heating combined with a solid fuel stove with a back boiler.
The house has an open-plan living area that opens into the dining room.
This leads through to the kitchen, which has timber countertops and shaker-style doors, painted a vanilla white with a contrasting sage green on the base of the island.
This leads through to the lounge, a room with a vaulted ceiling and a stove.
The principal bedroom is at the far end of the house and has a walk-through wardrobe that opens through to its ensuite bathroom.
Upstairs, two rooms are used as bedrooms.
These have rooflights rather than windows and so technically, under building regulations, can’t be called bedrooms, but provide extra accommodation and share a bathroom.
The house extends to 111 square metres across these two levels.
Across the farmyard, or avenue as they call it, in some parts of the country, is one of four more structures waiting to be upgraded.
Two buildings could, subject to planning and to suitable architectural drawings, be linked to the main house.
One is a lean-to that extends to about 14 square metres.
The other is a vernacular arched roof, a cut-stone two-stable building that measures about 67 square metres.
The shape of this building is now very fashionable and is being replicated in self-builds all over the country.
In addition to it, there is a three-bay hayshed of about 133 square metres with about the same amount of space in the lean-to attached to it.
There is a derelict two-room cottage that measures about 55 square metres.
That totals an additional 402 square metres of space waiting to be reimagined, if you have the deep pockets to do so, or the skills to do some or all of the labour yourself.
And you can live in comfort while doing it.
As it stands, it’s a really pretty cottage, where you could raise a family and keep a couple of ponies and live the kind of rural life that is becoming increasingly rare.
The homestead is about 2.7 km from Castledaly village and about 2.5 km from the local primary school, Kilcleagh National School.
There are secondary schools in both Moate and Athlone, which is a 13 km drive.
