New rich paid millions for homes of the Ascendancy

Country house prices soared over the decade as buyers with profits from property bought and lavishly redecorated them, writes MICHAEL PARSONS

JEDWARDIAN, to coin a term, is as good a word as any to describe the cheeky, period pastiche architectural style of many new one-off houses which sprouted throughout rural Ireland over the past decade. Drive along any country road and you’ll find examples aplenty fronted by elaborate entrances and hideous electric gates more suited to the residences of Moscow oligarchs than the homesteads of the plain people of Ireland.

The rural Irish landscape underwent its greatest-ever transformation in the last decade, as the commuter belt stretched improbably into counties as far afield as Cavan and Wexford. But the most fascinating characteristic of the decade was a revival of interest in the Big House as wealth prompted the nouveau riche to adopt the lifestyle of London’s upper classes who believe that “anyone who is anyone goes to the country at weekends”.

Ian McCarthy of Sherry FitzGerald points out that “the ‘country home’ was reminiscent of the landed gentry to whom the Irishman traditionally doffed his hat”. Not any more. A new class of Irish rich “relieved the descendants of ancestral homes of their burden” allowing the relics of aul dacency to “return to live in luxury in Onslow Gardens or Ladbroke Square in London – their traditional hunting ground during the social season but long since lost to them”. As a result, he says, “Irish fine homes were renovated – at great cost – to their original grandeur”. Not since the height of the Anglo-Irish Ascendancy in the 18th and 19th century had so much money been lavished on decorating large houses.

Some of the wealthy preferred to build their own houses. The billionaire tycoon J P McManus is believed to have spent tens of millions of euro on a Palladian-style mansion at Martinstown, Co Limerick with pleasure grounds dominated by an artificial lake in the shape of the county.

But most preferred to buy – and renovate – existing houses. Dancer Michael Flatley, whose wealth is estimated at €540 million, acquired and renovated Castle Hyde – the 4,645sq m (50,000sq ft) ancestral home of Ireland’s first president, Douglas Hyde – in Co Cork.

He paid £3 millionfor the house on 150 acres of pasture and woodland on the banks of the River Blackwater and spent the decade renovating the magnificent property. According to an interview on ABC television, Flatley spent $60 million (€39.85m) working on the house.

Some estates were bought and transformed into country house hotels and golf resorts; others were acquired as trophy estates by gentleman farmers. Demand was mostly fuelled by domestic investors.

At the start of the decade, and despite the Celtic Tiger, according to Marcus Magnier of Colliers Jackson-Stops: “Country properties could remain on the market for two to three years in search of the special buyer and during this period one could purchase a good period house with, say, 150 acres for around €1.25 million.”

But, like the rest of the property market, things were about to change. Despite the temporary economic downturn after September 11th, 2001, prices and interest levels began to soar. Historic Lissadell House on 400 acres in Co Sligo sold in 2003 for “about €3 million” (a figure which would soon afterwards not buy a semi-detached house on some of the better roads in south Dublin).

Mr Magnier explains that prices “accelerated rapidly particularly in 2005 and 2006” when “a new purchaser arrived on the market – namely the Irish buyer who had made, or was in the process of making, considerable profits from property investment and development”.

In 2005, one of the most notable sales was that of Glenbrook in Enniskerry, a period house on over two acres in the village which sold for €6.2 million.

He says “2006 proved to be the peak of the market with the sale of Bective Demesne in Meath, an estate with a Georgian house in need of considerable repair with 180 acres making region €13 million”.

The following year witnessed the start of the decline. Magnier says “2007 saw the last of the Celtic Tiger results, one of these being Tynte Park in Dunlavin, a Georgian house and 135 acres which sold for a price believed to be in the region of €12 million”.

Thereafter, many properties failed to reach their asking price; some vendors cut their price – others simply withdrew properties from the market altogether. And some did the unthinkable. The Castle Annaghs estate in Co Kilkenny was – at €16 million – the most expensive country estate for sale in Ireland in 2008. But it failed to sell. Earlier this year, its German owners cut the guide price by over 50 per cent to just €8.5 million.

At a packed auction in New Ross in May the estate eventually sold for €6.075 million – almost €10 million less than the original asking price, a result which auctioneer Anne Carton, of PN O’Gorman said “reflects the realities of the market”.

So where are we now? Robert Ganly of Knight Frank believes that “we are probably back to 2000 prices for agricultural land and this obviously will have an impact on properties with large acreage”.

At present, he says “there is a lack of quality estates on the market” but he predicts that “we are likely to see more quality properties coming to the market in the first half of next year” and expects the market to be dominated by overseas, especially British, rather than Irish buyers.

David Ashmore of Savills agrees and that prices for country houses and estates are down 50 per cent from the peak and “are now back to those being achieved in late 2000/early 2001”.

He is “cautiously optimistic” about the future and believes that “provided nothing calamitous happens to further weaken buyer confidence and, provided there is not a deluge of property onto the market” there may be a “slight” improvement in 2010.

For now, chill winds are whistling through the broad and sunny uplands.

But demand will return because, as Gerald O'Hara explained in Gone With The Wind, for Irish people, "land's the only thing in the world worth working for, worth fighting for, worth dying for, because it's the only thing that lasts".

Top five sales of the decade

Humewood Castle, Kiltegan, Co Wicklow

€25 million in 2006

Ballintaggart House, Colbinstown, Co Kildare

€13.5m in 2006

Bective Demesne, Co Meath

€13 million in 2006

Ballinatray Estate, Co Cork

€12 million in 2004

Tynte Park, Dunlavin, Co Wicklow

€12 million in 2007