The former country house of Nazi war criminal Pieter Menten, who fled to Co Waterford, was later beautifully restored by an English couple. Now it’s for sale for €3m
TWENTY-ONE years ago an English couple who were mad keen on hunting fell in love with Ireland during a weekend in Co Tipperary. Despite their chagrin at the shortage of bubbly in 1980s Cashel - “we tried every shop and pub on the Main Street and they all had Persil and Power’s but not a single bottle of champagne” - they decided to stay.
They bought Comeragh House, near the village of Lemybrien, in unspoilt Co Waterford countryside between Carrick-on-Suir and Dungarvan. But now, due to downsizing, they are reluctantly selling the 465sq m (5,000sq ft) house on 100 acres beneath the Comeragh Mountains by private treaty through joint agents Knight Frank and William Montgomery.
The house was originally the ancestral home of the Anglo-Irish Palliser family whose name was borrowed by Trollope for a series of novels (made into a memorable 1970s TV series). The great 19th century writer did, after all, work for some time at the post office in nearby Clonmel. But not even a novelist of his powers could have imagined the story that would unfold at the house.
Finding Comeragh House isn’t easy but then you’ll need to have €3 million to spare before asking for precise directions. The house, as claimed, is indeed “hidden from all eyes and cannot be seen from any of the surrounding roads”.
The approach is along a private 1km-long tarmac drive flanked by mature rhododendrons and laurels, which passes a lake with an island. It continues via a tree-lined avenue facing sloping parkland with cedars, oak and horse chestnut trees before reaching the gravelled front entrance to the main house.
The secluded location presumably appealed to the previous owner, a mysterious Dutch millionaire art collector who bought the estate in 1964. A decade later, local people were shocked by newspaper reports when Pieter Menten was unmasked as a Nazi war criminal who had somehow evaded justice and acquired an estate in Ireland.
Menten was sensationally arrested in Holland and tried for involvement in the mass killing of Polish Jews in an occupied Ukrainian village in 1941. During the trial, he claimed to have been the victim of mistaken identity and said that passports he had cemented into a wall on his Irish estate could prove his innocence. But the Dutch court rejected his defence and he was jailed for 15 years.
While he was imprisoned, Comeragh House was damaged by arson attacks which some believed were orchestrated by Mossad, the Israeli secret service. The house was also raided by a gang of presumed art thieves. But Menten’s fabled art collection – allegedly looted during the War – had, apparently, already been secretly spirited away to Dublin and then the Continent. Following his early release from jail, there was widespread public concern that he would return to Ireland.
In 1985, then Minister for Justice Michael Noonan issued a barring order preventing his return to the State. Following Menten’s death in 1987 at the age of 89, his widow decided to sell the estate in Waterford.
Comeragh House was, by then, the proverbial Irish Georgian wreck and the new owners lived in a cottage for over seven years and spent millions restoring the house to its former grandeur. No expense has been spared on sumptuous fixtures and fittings with a profusion of marble and mahogany. Many of the rooms have silk-lined walls.
Off an entrance hallway the size of a small ballroom is a guest cloakroom where a plaster-cast bust of a classical Greek god faces the loo. “He’s such a voyeur”, quips her ladyship – who graciously provides a choice of scents (including Penhaligon’s and Christian Dior) for visitors’ use. The reception rooms are spacious and lavish; the diningroom ceiling and walls are draped with enough burgundy silk to dress a conclave of cardinals.
The “Yellow Drawing Room” shimmers like a Limoncello mirage and you could just imagine the late Queen Mother ensconced there, perusing the Racing Post while sipping a Dubonnet-and-gin.
The kitchen, scullery, pantry and boot-room are pure Downton Abbey. A groundsman, carrying in an armful of logs, greeted “Ma’am” as she showed The Irish Times a glass-cased display containing a furry cast of blooded stoats – a triumph of Victorian taxidermy.
Upstairs, luxurious bedrooms feature four-posters, fireplaces and carpets in which a half-crown could sink without trace. Fabulous ablutions await in the naughtily Edwardian Seaside Bathroom with its green-and-white striped fabric walls and a faux tented-beach-hut-style ceiling.
An “Indian Campaign Bathroom” features a centrally-placed bath beneath a ceiling painted with a starlit night sky. The shower and storage cupboards are disguised as Raj campaign tents topped with gold-flagged crests. Lucknow meets Lemybrien.
A “Star’s Dressing Room” is walled throughout with limed-oak clothes’ cupboards, some with open-shelved pigeonholes to see at a glance what not to wear. A concealed dressing table is fitted with theatrical lighting for immaculate make-up. And, as the room’s current occupant pointed out, there is still “much space left for twirling about”.
Outside, there’s a courtyard leading to extensive staff/guest accommodation; stabling for the horses; 47 acres of formal gardens and parkland; and large areas of mature woodland.
It’s a wonderful house for entertaining and lavish parties have included a memorable outdoor event at which Shirley Bassey sang.
Despite all the land, there isn’t an ear-tagged moo cow or muck-spattered slurry spreader in sight. This, readers, is the proverbial “trophy estate” for someone who enjoys country life but doesn’t need anything so vulgar as a single farm payment. If you aspire to being a squire, you’ll think you’ve died and gone to heaven. And when you do, the estate boasts its own private graveyard. For access to more temporal pleasures, Waterford airport is just 20 minutes away.
