Sale of the WeekProperty man Paul Newman has paid top money for a country house in Kildare, writes Frances O'Rourke
Property guru Paul Newman has bought Ballintaggart House and stud farm, a large period house on 165 acres at Colbinstown, Co Kildare, for around €13 million. He finalised the deal a few days after the property was withdrawn at auction last week by agent Pat O'Hagan of HOK.
Mr Newman - chairman of estate agency Douglas Newman Good and a director of property development companies in Ireland and the UK - will move into Ballintaggart House from his home in Ballymore Eustace, Co Wicklow.
The flamboyant property man is the biggest shareholder in MyHome.ie, the successful property search engine which is likely to be sold shortly.
The boss of Douglas Newman Good moved into property development about 10 years ago when Chesterbridge Developments, a consortium owned by Newman, Michael Whelan and Paul Hanby, bought Sherriff Street flats and redeveloped the area as Custom House Quay.
Currently, Newman and Hanby's Tenbury Developments is to build 743 homes in Newcastle, Co Wicklow: the major residential scheme was recently given the go-ahead by South Dublin County Council.
And Tenbury's eco-friendly development in Northampton, England, won Newman plaudits from Prince Charles earlier this year: the new homes scheme was built in co-operation with Prince Charles's Prince's Trust charity. His company Paul Newman New Homes has recently built a commercial/residential developments in Milton Keynes in the UK. In Ireland, Newman and Paul Hanby also own 50 per cent of McDonagh Junction shopping centre being built in Kilkenny.
Ballintaggart House is an 18th century Gothic revival property on 165 acres: the family motto, carved in stone above the entrance to the 652sq m (7,000sq ft) main house, can roughly be translated as "Live A Good Life". And there is every chance to do that in this property, which includes nine large bedrooms, a stately drawingroom and a diningroom that seats 14.
Outside, there is a walled Victorian garden with a gardener's apartment, a tennis court, cut-stone steward's house and a restored gamekeeper's cottage as well as outhouses and 28 looseboxes. Richard and Annie O'Toole, the owners of Ballintaggart, have retained almost 100 acres which form part of the estate.
