Tommy Kelly spending €2m on renovation of Donabate mansion

Tech entrepreneur Tommy Kelly, one of Ireland’s richest men, is spending at least €2 million renovating Seafield House, a 300-year-old Palladian mansion in Donabate, north Dublin.

Mr Kelly, who made up to €600 million selling his ecommerce company eShopWorld, has applied to Fingal County Council for planning permission to put a two-storey extension on the side of the protected building, restore its roof and external facade, and refurbish it as a family home.

The businessman bought Seafield House in late 2021 for a reported €10 million. The property was sold by estate agent Sherry FitzGerald, which Mr Kelly coincidentally bought last year.

Built in the 1730s and set on 80 acres, Seafield House was reputedly designed by the architect Sir Edward Lovett Pearce, whose other buildings include the Bank of Ireland building on College Green in Dublin. A Victorian wing was added in 1855, including a coach and stable yard and a clock tower. Covering 9,600sq ft, it has eight bedrooms and nine bathrooms over three floors. The previous owners planted 600 trees on the grounds.

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It was originally put on the market by Sherry FitzGerald in 2018, with an asking price of €9.995 million. The mansion appeared on the TV series Selling Ireland’s Most Exclusive Homes.

An architectural heritage impact assessment on the proposed changes to Seafield has been submitted to Fingal planners by Deirdre Conroy, an architectural consultant as well as a Fianna Fáil councillor who recently made headlines over reports that she told a lodger that their rent of €260 a week was “very low”.

Her report says a programme of repairs is already under way at Seafield, in consultation with the council. The house is surrounded by scaffolding and not currently habitable while “no expense has been spared” to ensure water does not get in. The restoration of the roof and facade alone will cost more than €2 million, it is stated.

Ms Conroy’s report says upgrades to the property, such as putting in a modern open-plan kitchen and family diningroom, were intended to cater for modern living requirements. “It is proposed to install a lift from ground floor to first-floor level within the annex building to facilitate access to bedrooms in later years,” it says. A space within the basement will be designed as guest accommodation. The extension “will not have a significant effect on the essential character of this protected structure”, it is argued.

Ms Conroy’s report claims that “many former mansions in Ireland end up derelict or demolished” and the new owner of Seafield is ensuring it remains in situ for years to come.

The planning application was made by Mr Kelly’s company, Seastorm Ltd. The final date for third-party observations and submissions was July 27th, but none were received.

Last year, Mr Kelly’s fund CastleGate Investments bought Sherry FitzGerald, Ireland’s largest estate agent, for an estimated €50 million. The fund, run by former Goodbody chief Roy Barrett, has a global investment portfolio, with a leaning towards technology.

Mr Kelly was the founder of eShopWorld, an ecommerce platform based in Swords that helps retailers sell to online markets. He sold his remaining 49.9 per cent stake in the company in March 2021 to Asendia, a joint venture between La Poste Suisse and the French company La Poste, which had been a majority shareholder since 2017. The deal valued eShopWorld at up to €1.4 billion. He remained as chief executive of the company, now rebranded as ESW, after the sale.

The entrepreneur’s family were farmers in Ballyboughal, not far from Donabate, and he went to agricultural college before going into haulage. He first established Two Way Forwarding and Logistics, which was bought in 2006 by Aramex, a Dubai-based company. Four years later he launched eShopWorld.