AROUND THE BLOCK:The surprise sale of the French embassy residence and offices on Ailesbury Road will be an early test for the very top end of the market but rest assured it will be sold.
No one doubts but that it is Dublin's finest house on a prime Dublin 4 site of 1.75 acres, but still there are few enough punters willing to spend €60 million on a private home.
For that reason it seems likely that it will be bought by one of the wealthy neighbours on either Ailesbury or Shrewsbury roads who will do a swap and pay the balance. The most obvious candidate would seem to be deal maker Derek Quinlan who could swap his two adjoining houses at 1 and 3 Shrewsbury Road with the embassy, and throw in the house he is refurbishing on Ailesbury Road for good measure.
The French would be happy with any arrangement that would allow them to stay in Ballsbridge, though it's unlikely that they will find another 40ft drawingroom for diplomatic soirées.
Whoever is the buyer, Ailesbury is now where all the action is in terms of top houses. Last year, of the top 10 houses traded in Dublin no less than five were on Ailesbury.
The most notable sale on the road was the €14 million paid for Albert Reynolds' Victorian semi at number 18.
The buyer was Seamus Mulligan, former senior executive at Elan, who now runs his own pharmaceutical company.
