Many people took stock of their lives and their surroundings during the Covid-19 pandemic. For the Irish-American billionaire John Malone taking stock meant refurbishing five of his top-end hotels in Ireland from top to bottom.
That meant clearing out the fixtures and fittings from Dublin’s Four Seasons (now Intercontinental) Hotel, Glenlo Abbey Hotel in Galway, Powerscourt Hotel in Co Wicklow and the Westin in Dublin, all five-star destinations, and Trinity City Hotel, a four-star hotel.
At the same time Paddy McKillen jnr, one of the most dynamic players in Dublin’s nightlife scene, is selling the contents of Larry Murphy’s pub in Lower Baggot Street, which he bought for about €1.7 million in 2021 and then proceeded to gut.
The contents of Buck Whaleys nightclub in Leeson Street, which he purchased in 2017, are also being sold. The guide price for a 1980s black leather sofa from that storied establishment is €100-€200. If those benches and chairs could talk, what stories they would tell. The demise of the nightclub has been well documented. Buck Whaleys is being turned into offices.
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The cumulative impact is one of the biggest auctions Dublin has seen in years. There are almost 1,200 lots, but considering that many are comprised of multiple units, the items of furniture run into the thousands. Four auction rooms in Prussia Street, Stoneybatter, are filled from floor to ceiling with items.
There are, for instance, 65 black velvet recliner seats from the cinema that used to be part of Ritz-Carlton in Powerscourt, which are being sold in lots of two.
There are two red aviator chairs that came from a private collection, which look like they belong on the set of Thunderbirds, guiding at €800-€1,200 each. There is a metal model of a torpedo, which once sat on the bar of the Trinity City Hotel, guiding at €60-€100; the ticket booth from the old Ambassador cinema, guiding at €500-€1,000; and a stunning Edwardian-style barber’s chair from Reads Cutlers on Parliament Street guiding at €800-€1,000.
There is a purple and mauve sofa with a back like a sail that is the most Celtic Tiger piece of furniture you could find and was once in the lobby of the Trinity City Hotel. It is guiding at €600-€800.
The auction will take two days starting on Tuesday and will all be done online or over the phone. If everything makes the minimum guide price, the contents will sell for €200,000, though those are usually conservative estimates.
Organised by antiques dealer Niall Mullen and Limerick businessman Kieran Murray, the sale will be conducted by auctioneer Aidan Foley, with viewing on Dublin’s Prussia Street from January 13th-16th.
Auctioneer Niall Mullen anticipates there will be a mixture of commercial and private bidders for all of the items. As much of it is coming from five-star hotels, the furniture will be as good as new in many cases.
“John Malone is America’s biggest landowner. There wouldn’t be a shortage of money, so he obviously decided during lockdown to take the opportunity to revamp. That’s why you have so much stuff,” he said.
“This furniture has lots of life left in it. People have to decide whether they want to go to Ikea, or a retail park, or come here.”
There has been particular interest from boutique hotels, he said, in sets of chests of drawers from the Drexel collection that were in the Four Seasons hotel. They are being sold in pairs and are guiding at €200-€400 for a pair, though they may fetch in excess of that.
