South Tipperary €15m :While it could be smartened up, Ballyknockane Lodge has serious potential, writes Michael Parsons.
Five years ago, Ballyknockane Lodge on over 5,000 acres of mountainside land in south Tipperary sold for "about €3 million". Today, the property is on the market asking €15 million.
Callum Bain of Ganly Walters in Dublin, who is handling the private treaty sale, claims "the house is more valuable due to the natural progression of land and property prices". Indeed. But a five-fold increase in 60 months is as breathtaking as the views from this Victorian shooting lodge, on the southern slopes of Slievenamon.
Bain believes there is considerable potential for the additional planting of "a sizeable amount of commercial forest" and for the production of wind power with "two areas" of the sprawling mountain estate "identified as ideal for wind farming". Which is a lot of hot air for €12 million.
Some 4,000 acres of moorland provide access to rough shooting of pheasant, woodcock and snipe (along with limited deer hunting). Agents in Britain have recently reported a surge in demand for sporting estates in Scotland from bonus-bloated London bankers and, with Waterford airport only 34 miles away, Ballyknockane is as easily accessible as the Highlands. Dublin hot-shots face a two-and-a-half hour drive but that will fall by an hour when the M9 is completed in 2010.
Despite the price, this estate is not quite the Sandringham of Slievenamon. It has the potential to become the Balmoral of Ballypatrick (the nearby somnolent hamlet where a sheepdog snoozes undisturbed in the centre of the road outside a disused creamery) but there's work to be done. The estate lacks a smart entrance. The hideous black sheet-metal gates opening onto its lime-tree lined avenue really need to be replaced.
Although a future mistress of the house may not spend much time in what is, essentially, a male retreat, she'll certainly require significant upgrading of the five-bedroom, four-reception room accommodation. Few of the original features survive - other than some unremarkable floor tiles, fireplaces and shutters; an "improved sanitary closet" (a magnificent teak and porcelain contraption by HJ Magee, Kilkenny); and, a kitchen bellboard for summoning the servants (made by Gents of Leicester and still bearing hand-painted inscriptions such as "Lady Moira's Rm").
A mews behind the lodge contains storage, a wine cellar and a first-floor, self-contained, one-bedroom apartment. The coach-house has been transformed into a four-bedroom house offering ideal staff quarters or sleepover space for spent guns. An adjacent double garage has a large billiard room on the first floor. There are also three, virtually identical, modern holiday cottages in the grounds, which are suitable for holiday (or permanent) letting or for housing gamekeepers. Rose, Ivy and Primrose, each with three bedrooms, were built "to comply with Bórd Fáilte four-star standard" and are as dated as that bleak designation suggests.
The lodge, fronted by a gravelled forecourt, sprouting weeds and dubious statuary, is surrounded by 50 sadly-neglected acres of gardens and an arboretum, containing 50 varieties of rhododendrons and azaleas, watered by a clear stream. A further 1,000 acres is managed by Coillte on a lease which expires in 60 years. All the land has clear views to the Comeragh and Galtee mountain ranges. Clonmel is eight miles away.
Ballyknockane Lodge was built in 1867 by the Marquess of Ormonde whose main residence was at Kilkenny Castle, 24 miles away. The Butler family sold out in 1979 and the estate was acquired by Kenneth O'Reilly Hyland, a former director of the Central Bank and, according to the Moriarty Tribunal, an Ansbacher account holder. In 2002, he sold it to the present owner, Tony Sheedy, described as "a successful international businessman from Limerick who divides his time between Ireland and the US".
