Covid-19 drove late interest in Kerry castle

€4m+Kerry castle deal took over a year to go from sale agreed to closing due to foreshore licence requirements. A Europe-based private buyer saw off commercial and hospitality sector interests to see the deal conclude.

Wed, 02 Dec, 2020 - 19:00

Tommy Barker

COMMERCIAL and corporate uses, in high-end and niche hospitality, were considered by viewers and disappointed underbidders on Co Kerry’s An Culu, a Gothic-style fantasy castle finally sold this week, for over €4m.

However, the unidentified purchaser — said to be a wealthy but low-profile individual based in continental Europe — will use the hideaway castle set deep in Coillte forestry near Kenmare for private residential use and for client entertainment.

Privacy and security were the drivers of interest in the castle, which can only really be glimpsed from the Kenmare river.

An Culu has a moat and drawbridge, for keeping out plagues, pandemics ...and the public

Built in gothic fairytale style, but with real craftsmanship, it features a moat, turrets, and a drawbridge — ideal for keeping pandemics, plagues, and the great unwashed at bay.

It’s understood that the selling agents, Catherine McAuliffe and Michael O’Donovan of Savills Cork with Savills Country, had 20 parties through the 9,000 sq ft castle, with the majority of them from overseas, including from the US, Canada, the UK, and continental Europe.

It went sale agreed over a year ago and contracts were signed by April. However, getting foreshore licences transferred for its quays and marina features and water access to the bay/Kenmare river near Templenoe proved a lengthy process, with the sale finally closing out just this week, after an eventful year.

Happy landing: An Culu has sold for €4-4.5 million via agents Savills. It once had €10m and even €15m price hopes

The impact of 2020’s Covid-19 pandemic lead to a fresh surge of international interest in its possible acquisition, it is understood.

“We could have sold it several times over this year again,” said Savills’ Ms McAuliffe, who said several hopeful parties were still in the hunt for something similar or at least with privacy and water frontage. "We’d had three of four strong inquiries each month give the pandemic, but the contracts were signed."

That scale of inquiry from high net worth individuals chimes with the comparable sales of Horse Island in West Cork during summer 2020 for c €5.7m to an undisclosed European purchaser via Colliers and Engel & Volkers, and the more recent sale of the 12,000 sq ft Glengarriff Castle, on 87 acres, for €2.7m via Sherry FitzGerald.

That West Cork castle, which had been a hotel for decades until the 1970s when its roof was removed, was a partially-completed multimillion euro private residential project by retired UK businessman Ted Toye, who passed away before seeing his dream Cork castle project realised.

At one stage in the mid-2000s, ruined Glengarriff Castle had a €20m price tag for local consortium owners, who reportedly refused a €15m offer on it as a hotel project.

Unfinished project: millions of euros have been spent on Castletownbere's Dunboy Castle, where hotel conversion work stalled during the mid to late 2000s

That, coincidentally, was at a time when similar sums were being spent on Dunboy Castle at Castletownbere, which is still an uncompleted hotel project but was physically rescued from a very ruined state and reroofed.

Over the Healy Pass, and across Kenmare Harbour in the adjoining Munster county back in Celtic Tiger times, the extravagantly-built An Culu had carried price hopes as high as €10m and even €15m in 2007 and 2008.

It’s a moot point as to how much higher than its 2018-set €4.5m guide it might have gone to in 2020 as the coronavirus and drive for remote properties drove ‘gazumping’ interest, which was rejected by Savills.

An Culu was built alongside a folly tea house castle ruin in the late 1990s by Londoner, entrepreneur Kevin Reardon, who is second-generation Irish with Cork roots.

He’d acquired the 4.5-acre sea-fronting site and ruin from Coillte, and completed the Ring of Kerry make-believe makeover and new build to deliver a 20th-century Gothic castle retreat, occasionally visiting by helicopter or convertible Bentley.

Despite having 9,000 sq ft within its battlement and basement (with grotto-like swimming pool) the five-storey castle An Culu had only five bedrooms. The cost of adding more bedrooms for guest use eventually poured cold water on plans by some who viewed it to change use to niche hospitality, renting short term for tens of thousands of euro per week a la Lismore Castle and others of similar and older ilk.

Sources locally had erroneously linked its purchase to a Dublin publican with hospitality interests in Temple Bar and across the capital and, while he’s a familiar figure in Kenmare and had shown interest in An Culu, the deal agreed in October 2019 stuck firm for its successful European-based buyer.

“The lucky new owner plans to spend a large part of the year at An Culu where he plans to entertain overseas guests and business associates as well as being able to appreciate some downtime in this luxurious haven,” said Savills’ residential director Catherine McAuliffe after ownership finally transferred this week.

At between €4m and €4.5m, its disposal “represents one of the largest country property transactions in Ireland this year,” say Savills having had it entertain both reclusive individuals, and more commercially-minded bidders, in pandemic times.