Another super-prime listing on Howth’s coveted Ceannchor Road has lowered its guide price in a bid to stir up interest from wealthy buyers. Drumleck House, the five-bedroom clifftop mansion once home to well-connected art dealers John and Gertrude Hunt, has thus far failed to find someone with deep enough pockets, and willing to part with the €10 million it was seeking when it came for sale last autumn.
Just over seven months on, the 8,400sq ft property, and its vast 10 acre estate overlooking Dublin Bay, is being offered to the market once again by agent Gallagher Quigley for the more modest though still significant sum of €8.75 million. Only time will tell if the 12.5 per cent price reduction for the grand 1830s home will be enough to bring a buyer to the table.
The palatial residence is likely to appeal to a well-heeled buyer looking to impress their guests – the Hunts played host and hostess in their time there to Jackie Kennedy, Elizabeth Arden and Peggy Rockefeller – with its ample entertaining space, indoor and outdoor swimming pools, and acres of formal Italianate gardens. Describing those gardens in a report for The Irish Times in 1993, Jim Reynolds wrote: “While the place does not set out to attain the grandeur and exuberance of the Italian gardens of the 17th century, it follows and shows a keen awareness of the principles laid down by [Italian architect] Vignola and the masters of architectural design.”
Drumleck isn’t the only high-end home on the prestigious Ceannchor Road to have cut its cloth to measure in recent times. News of its price drop comes just weeks after the sum being sought for Censure House, a six-bedroom (14,700sq ft) mansion and nine acre estate went from €15 million to €12.5 million – a chunky decrease of 17 per cent.
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Within weeks of going on the market, Censure House came to the attention of the media after being linked with a possible buyer in the form of mixed martial arts (MMA) multimillionaire Conor McGregor. Those reports however, appear to have been somewhat exaggerated.
The luxury homes on Howth Head aren’t alone in dealing with what property agents politely refer to as “price discovery”. Just a short helicopter ride across Dublin Bay sits another potential money-saving opportunity for a high-net-worth individual in the form of Ananda, a 10,000sq ft residence on St George’s Avenue in Killiney, now guiding at €8.95 million through joint agents Vincent Finnegan and Knight Frank – 11 per cent less than its original asking price.
