Five-star Kerry hotel to be sold for €5m

One of the country’s premier hotels, the five-star Sheen Falls Lodge in Kenmare, Co Kerry, is to be sold in a deal worth about €5m.

Thu, 10 Jan, 2013 - 00:00

Tommy Barker Property Editor

Staff have been told of the change of ownership and the sale is expected to be signed shortly.

It follows the €10m-plus purchase of another top Ring Of Kerry hotel, Parknasilla, which was acquired last month by international buyers headed by Swiss-Lebanese billionaire Jacqui Safra. He owns a private island next to Parknasilla’s 400 acres.

As investors continue to eye up Irish trophy hotels — many at bargain prices — Sheen Falls is the latest to be snapped up by UK buyers.

Built around a 1700s hunting lodge by River Falls, above the Kenmare River, the hotel was close to a sale in mid-2011 via Savills in Cork.

Developed in the late 1980s by Danish shipping businessman Bent Hoyer and opened in 1991, the award-winning hotel has 66 bedrooms and suites, as well as a number of holiday lodges.

Although it is on over 300 acres of wild land, Sheen Falls Lodge is being sold on just a small portion of that. The UK-based buyers have a small group of family-friendly manor and castle hotels.

Meanwhile, it has emerged that the €20m deal agreed on selling the Fota Island Resort to a Chinese buyer hit difficulties over Christmas and is yet to be completed.