Buying a home online: ‘It was surreal to walk up to the house you’d only seen in a picture’

For more than 30 years, Kevin Pruitt and his wife, Eileen, lived and thrived in Austin, Texas. The the fast-paced city, often ranked as one of the best places to live in the United States, had served them well. They had both built highly successful careers – Kevin as an award-winning film-maker, Eileen as a top real-estate agent – but something had to give.

When the pandemic struck, and everything shut down, it was a chance for them to hit pause and reassess what was important to them. “We were one of those couples that, mid-pandemic, said, ‘You know what, this might be an opportunity to do something completely different’,” he says. One day, Eileen – who has strong Irish family connections – spotted a dormer bungalow that had just come up for sale in Schull, in west Co Cork. They were familiar with the area from regular trips to Ireland, and thought the property looked interesting.

The house hit the market prior to the major lockdowns here, so they were able to send some of Eileen’s cousins down from Tipperary to check it out. When the Irish contingent gave the thumbs up, Kevin and Eileen got the house surveyed. And then they took a huge leap of faith: they bought the bungalow over the internet, having never set foot in it.

They packed all their belongings into a shipping container and, in February 2021, got on a plane bound for Ireland. There were only about eight people on the flight … plus the Pruitts’ little rescue dogs, Pepe and Chiquita, who were allowed travel on board with them. The couple had to quarantine in Dublin, but the Irish relatives came to the rescue once again, delivering groceries. “We were really fortunate.”

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Our lifestyle was working seven days a week, literally, and working for 12, 14 hours, living with our phones connected to us at the hip

Once out of quarantine, they took a taxi service to Bandon to collect a car they had bought. (Sadly, Kevin had to sell the beloved 1969 Buick Skylark he drove back in Austin.) This was during lockdown, so they had to contend with roadblocks, but finally they made it all the way to Schull and their new home.

“It was very surreal to drive in and walk up to the home that you had never seen except in a picture,” Kevin recalls. “The previous owner met us there and showed us around. It was really wild.”

They initially had to live in a rental in Schull because everything they owned was in the shipping container and it got caught up in the Suez Canal blockage. “It was a nightmare.” The owner of the rental took pity on them and lent them some bare essentials – a mattress, two chairs, a few plates, two knives, two forks – so they could move into their new home.

The house itself was well-maintained, but in need of updating. They decided to remodel in phases: they renovated the bedrooms and bathrooms, took a break, and now they’ve moved on to the kitchen. This area is particularly important to Eileen who, in a previous career, worked as a chef for a country and western star.

In hindsight, Kevin says that the biggest mistake of their renovation was starting during lockdown, as this made it really difficult to travel around Ireland to look at interior fittings and so on. “Lockdown definitely limited our choices on many levels.” However, there have been lots of wins too, such as installing solar and infrared heating panels throughout the house and being able to move off heating oil. “Even with higher energy prices, our electricity bills have gone down significantly,” says Kevin.

They are now semi-retired, fitting in some consulting work, but very much focusing on completing the remodel of their forever home together. “This is not a second home, it’s not a holiday home. We sold our home. This is it.”

It was very surreal, to drive in and walk up to the home that you had never seen except in a picture

Have they found what they were looking for in west Cork? “In spades,” Kevin says. “The way that you live in Austin, the way that you’re go-go-go … I can’t even compare it to the lifestyle here.”

They relish the opportunity to be able to get a good night’s sleep “without phones ringing and being texted in the middle of the night and waking up to a slew of emails and texts, just being able to slow down”, he adds. “We still, to this day, pinch ourselves when we wake up here. We know how fortunate we are to be able to live here. It really is magical. I spent over 25 years looking through a camera and I don’t have to worry about doing that now.”

He can just go and explore places like Mizen Head and Gougane Barra with Eileen and enjoy seeing everything through his own eyes, rather than through a lens, he says. “I don’t see how you could ever get tired of or not notice the beauty here.”

And the diverse mix of down-to-earth people in west Cork – “locals, blow-ins, artists, farmers” – makes it a really interesting place to live.

So what do they miss about the Texas capital? “I’ve got to be brutally honest – really not anything,” he says. Friends from back home are able to come and visit, so that’s not a problem. The couple certainly don’t miss the awful Austin traffic, or the extreme weather. In 2021, Texas was hit by a devastating ‘Big Freeze’ winter storm – “the entire state basically froze” – and in the summer it would get so hot that Pepe and Chiquita couldn’t go for walks because the sidewalk would burn their paws. He says the dogs love Ireland. “They can tell that we’re relaxed and happy.”

In Texas, they have a saying: I may not be from here, but I got here as fast as I could. And that is exactly how the Pruitts feel about west Cork. “It really is paradise,” Kevin says.