Jack Tierney's Craigfort Taverns Ltd is about to seek planning permission for a sports campus and golf resort in the grounds of Killashee House Hotel on the Kilcullen Road in Naas, in Co Kildare and on a portion of the adjoining former Piper's Hill stud farm.
Last autumn Tierney, the owner of the four-star Kilashee hotel and Faxhill Homes, bought around 150-acres of the former stud farm for a figure believed to be in excess of €25m from race horse trainer Dermot Weld.
The stud farm totalled around 266 acres and another 50-plus acres beside the hotel were sold to Ballymore Properties who reportedly paid in the region of €60m.
The planning application, which is about to be submitted to Kildare County Council, seeks permission for a golf clubhouse and 18-hole golf course as well as 96 golf villas around the perimeter of the course and 70 two-bed golf apartments in 12 buildings .
It is also proposed to build an 80-bedroom four-storey sports campus building with a viewing tower, two grass football practice pitches, four floodlit, hard-surface five-a-side football pitches and a gym.
The developer is also looking for a change of use of Piper's Hill house to two golf apartments and the equine stables to three golf apartments as well as the conversion of a cottage on the grounds to a golf villa
Killashee House was built in 1861 as a hunting lodge, in more than 400 acres (160ha) of farmland. In 1927 it was sold to La Sainte Union nuns, who ran it as a school until 1998. Two years later it opened as a hotel.
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