Wanted: one new lord for the manor
Do you like horses, have access to €7.5m and fancy living like the landed gentry? If the answer is yes, log on to YouTube to see if this is the property for you
The Woodhouse Estate in Stradbally Co Waterford
The Woodhouse Estate in Stradbally, Co Waterford, is back on the market after a short hiatus. The historic estate featured on the cover of this supplement in March this year, when the price was reduced from €11.5m to €7.5m. The estate has since undergone further intensive investment and has been repackaged with 383 acres.
Aidan Farrell, who purchased the property with his business partner Charles O'Reilly-Hyland three years ago, explains that a desire to refocus their advertising campaign was behind the move.
"We believe that this is a property that is outside of the normal day-to-day market and we sat down and analysed how best we could spread our net to market the property.
"A rich international businessman, that's who I imagine will buy it. Now they are thin on the ground, but there are still guys making substantial sums of money in the stock market. There are still some players.
"We are getting interest from different sections -- we have an agent in Beverly Hills, in Manhattan, we have Savills in London, Savills in Dublin and an agent in Russia. From that, we have tightened up on viewings. If someone wants to view the house, they have to have a letter from a financial institution of substance to show that they are of sufficient substance to purchase a property of this magnitude. We don't like opening up this property because the value of this property is in its privacy."
The business partners have set up a website dedicated to the property, www.woodhouseestate.com, and hired a TV company to make a short film with a virtual tour for potential buyers, which can be viewed on YouTube. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v303O6lkgnI)
According to Farrell, the income generated by the estate is enough to fund the day-to-day costs of running an estate this size. He is confident that there will be a lot of international interest, and indeed, has a number of viewings.
"We recently sent our estate manager to the US promoting the property at bloodstock shows and there was a very strong response. In fact, most people thought the property was undervalued at €7.5m, and would have expected it to cost upwards of $15m."
It is indeed a one-of-a-kind property. Woodhouse has a colourful history, having been built in 1605 by the FitzGeralds, before passing to the Uniake and Beresford families.
It was more recently owned by a branch of the Saudi royal family and it was from them that the current owners bought the property.
They put "millions" into the renovations -- the work was supervised by leading Irish architects and included total re-decoration, supervised by London interior design consultants.
The 10-bedroom, six-bay, 1,150sqm main house and many of the other properties on the estate have been completely renovated, while outside, the Cromwellian courtyard, estate boundary walls and driveways have been brought back to their original magnificence. A two-mile walk around the estate known as the Mine Avenue was reinstated using maps from 1900.
Accommodation in the main house includes an entrance hall, morning room, stair hall, drawing room, dining room, family room, sun room, bar/party room, billiard room, estate office, kitchen, breakfast room, utility room, two cloakrooms, a mater bedroom suite with dressing room and bathroom, three further bedrooms with bathrooms, seven further bedrooms and two further bathrooms.
It was always Farrell and O'Reilly-Hyland's intention to invest in the property and sell it on.
"When we bought the estate it was about 650 acres in total. What we set out to do was create a very upmarket equine area -- like Lexington, Kentucky -- and to that end we sold parcels of land to different individuals with equine interests. One is going to be a breeding facility; another parcel has been bought by a trainer. We also wanted to bring the estate down to a more manageable size."
For more information contact Savills, 01 6634350
- Yvonne Hogan
Irish Independent
