THE DAUGHTER of film star Fred Astaire plans to put her home in Castlepoint near Schull, west Cork, on the market having moved to Ireland from California in 1975.
Richard McKenzie, artist and writer, owner of the property he calls Clonlea Cottage, along with his wife, Ava Astaire McKenzie (daughter of the late Fred Astaire) intend to move to Palm Springs, Florida. The couple raised their sons Kevin and Tyler in Cork.
The family home is now being placed on the market with an asking price of €525,000. Clonlea Cottage is on 3.5 acres with a guest cottage and gardens.
Mr McKenzie has written a book about life at Clonlea Cottage entitled Turn Left at the Black Cow.
On the Myhome.ie website he says he and his wife Ava had a steep learning curve when they moved to Ireland.
“Ava maintains that we were led here and I’m inclined to agree. True, we were searching for a more realistic lifestyle than Beverly Hills; a place to bring up the kids where such things as the right address and car and restaurant were not all-important.
“We thought that might be London, never dreaming we would find ourselves on the Irish seacoast in a 200-year-old farmhouse situated five miles from the nearest village and a healthy walk to the nearest neighbours.
“We were urban and highly unqualified for a bucolic lifestyle but over time, through the typical kind assistance and teaching of the Irish, we learned.”
Mr McKenzie joked growing up that Ava Astaire only knew the kitchen as a passageway out to the garage or a place for a cup of tea with the cook but somehow she gained knowledge of raising vegetables and became a fine enough cook to have published a cookery book.
Writing on Myhome.ie, Mr McKenzie says the property has been the family’s “Nirvana for nearly four decades” and they will miss it very much.
Fred Astaire’s stage and subsequent film career spanned a total of 76 years.