Pete O’Connor self-built two of his family’s homes before perfecting his craft with Glasmor Country House
Asking price: €695,000
Agent: Sherry FitzGerald Stephenson Crean (066) 718 0822
On a clear day, the outline of the MacGillycuddy Reeks looms on the horizon from Pete and Joan O’Connor’s sitting room, the light shifting across the slopes as the afternoon wears on. It is a view that was considered long before a block was laid on this elevated site near Firies, between Tralee and Killarney.
The elaborate bifurcated staircase at Glasmor Country House, Ballyfinnane, Firies, Co Kerry
“We built our house in 2003,” Pete O’Connor says, “and moved in in 2004. We had previously lived in two other houses prior to that. This one, we put a lot of effort into. It was kind of an opportunity.”
Said opportunity was partly financial and partly experiential. By the early 2000s, O’Connor and his brother were building houses, and he had already completed two of his own. The third build, on the farm near where he grew up, came with fewer constraints: “We didn’t have the financial restraints that we had in the other previous houses that we built. It allowed a bit of flexibility to put into it what we wanted and what we liked.”
That freedom translated into a collaborative project – one that drew on O’Connor’s practical experience and wife Joan’s instinct for interiors. “Joan would have been into the interior design and the finishes and the layout as well,” he says.
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A reception room at Glasmor Country House, Ballyfinnane, Firies, Co Kerry
Joan’s contribution is visible from the moment you step inside. There is colour, but it is measured rather than loud. Timber floors run through the main rooms, and tiling is used carefully, not simply as a surface but as part of the overall arrangement. Joan credits magazines for much of her early inspiration and says she could sell “bucket loads of them” at this point. Unlike some self-builders who begin with a rigid vision, Joan’s approach was more incremental.
The kitchen comes with an AGA stove at Glasmor Country House, Ballyfinnane, Firies, Co Kerry
The house that emerged has the proportions of a traditional country home. O’Connor was clear from the outset about the direction he wanted to take. “We were always into the traditional country look,” he says. “We didn’t want to build anything that wouldn’t look right in the area.” The form mimics the Irish farmhouse ‘cluster’ vernacular, even though it has a very modern look, thanks to part-rendered, part-exposed stone walls.
The two-storey, five-bedroom detached house is positioned centrally on its site, and has a large detached garage to one side. From a distance, it has the settled appearance of a building that has been in place longer than two decades. That was deliberate, O’Connor says.
A seating area at Glasmor Country House, Ballyfinnane, Firies, Co Kerry
The accommodation includes five bedrooms and three bathrooms. The bedrooms are arranged to suit family life, which was the brief from the beginning. “It was a family home,” O’Connor says. “We have three children.” All are now grown up and “doing their own thing”, but the house was planned around the practicalities of raising them.
One of their children, Fionán, still lives locally, runs his own precision engineering business in Cork, and has fond memories of growing up in Glasmor, where he was heavily involved with local GAA club Milltown. “I have great memories of the area,” Fionán says. “The kids at school were all lovely people. I haven’t moved that far, just a few miles down the road.”
Fionán and Pete O’Connor pictured at Glasmor Country House, Ballyfinnane, Firies, Co Kerry
Downstairs, there are two main reception rooms. Both have natural light and open views across the surrounding countryside. The kitchen functions as the centre of the house, anchored by an Aga stove that O’Connor describes as one of the items previously out of reach. “The Aga was something that we couldn’t afford before, and we were able to put it into this house,” he says. It is positioned not as a showpiece but as a working element in a room designed for daily use.
The upstairs landing at Glasmor Country House, Ballyfinnane, Firies, Co Kerry
There is detailed joinery and panelling throughout the house – the product, the O’Connors say, of careful selection rather than impulse. Lessons learned from earlier builds informed practical decisions about storage, circulation and room size. “Definitely, we would have learned,” O’Connor says of the previous houses. “We would have seen a lot of houses and designs and mistakes.”
One of the bedrooms at Glasmor Country House, Ballyfinnane, Firies, Co Kerry
If O’Connor’s focus was on structure and layout, Joan’s attention settled on how rooms would feel. The sitting room is her favourite space. Originally, it had a single window where double doors now open onto a decking area. When it was done initially, there was only a window where the double doors are. It was Joan who convinced him to go back and knock out that window and install glazed double doors to optimise the views.
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Another one of the bedrooms at Glasmor Country House, Ballyfinnane, Firies, Co Kerry
The change altered not just the elevation, but the way the room is used. The doors draw the eye outward to the garden and beyond, creating a direct relationship with the landscape and the mountains in the distance, while the decking provides an ‘intermediate’ space.
The master bedroom at Glasmor Country House, Ballyfinnane, Firies, Co Kerry
The grounds themselves are straightforward, with a large garden with lots of room for children to play, or for gardening. At just under 0.85 acres, it could be described as manageable without being insignificant.
Firies is a small rural community, but it sits within practical reach of larger centres such as Tralee, which is approximately 10km away. Killarney is about 20km, meanwhile, and Kerry Airport around 12km away.
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The main bathroom at Glasmor Country House, Ballyfinnane, Firies, Co Kerry
For O’Connor, there is a personal resonance of building on family land. “I would be originally from the area,” he says. Now, more than 20 years after moving in, he and Joan have decided to sell. The decision has not been abrupt. They first considered it in 2018 and 2019. “We were going for sale then,” O’Connor recalls. “But my son actually said, ‘why don’t you rent it for a while and see how you feel about being below in the other place?’.”
An aerial view of Glasmor Country House, Ballyfinnane, Firies, Co Kerry. The house sits on a 0.84 acre site
They chose to hold on to it, letting it until the end of last year: “We all kind of hoped that maybe one of our own would like to live there but that didn’t happen.”
They are not moving far. O’Connor had purchased another property nearby in 2006, closer to the farm, and the couple intend to settle there. Asked whether they would consider building again, O’Connor is unambiguous. “I don’t think so.” Three self-builds are likely sufficient for one lifetime.
Meantime, agents Sherry FitzGerald Stephenson Crean seek €695,000 on their behalf.