Its front face presents five bays to the west, but the doorway sits not at the centre, where convention might place it, but noticeably to the left. The two chimneys, likewise, do not align with any obvious axis. The roof is hipped and thatched, meaning it slopes down on all four sides rather than ending in gable walls, a form that sheds wind and rain efficiently and was once common across Munster but is now relatively rare in the surviving vernacular landscape.

The house is L-shaped in plan, a configuration that often indicates either a later extension added at right angles to an original range, or a deliberate response to the lie of the land or the needs of a farmyard. Vernacular buildings of this type were rarely designed by architects. They grew according to the resources and circumstances of their occupants, and the slight irregularities, the off-centre door, the asymmetric chimneys, reflect that pragmatic, unschematised approach to construction. Cork's east and south, where Greencloyne lies, retains a scattering of such buildings, though thatched examples that remain occupied and in use are becoming genuinely uncommon. The fact that this one continues to be lived in is part of what makes it worth noting.