Co Meath: €2.9m Teviot Grove - a country home on 18 acres where horses get five-star treatment - would suit a rich businessman with a passion for all things equine, says Michael Parsons
Teviot Grove, a 325sq m (3,500sq ft) country residence on 18 acres outside Dunboyne, Co Meath, has an advised minimum value (AMV) of €2.9 million prior to auction through HOK Country on May 25th.
Dunboyne had a flickering brush with glamour when, in the 1960s, it was chosen as the location for the filming of RTÉ's inaugural foray into serial drama.
The Riordans, the world's first carbolic soap opera, featured the plain people of Ireland and was set in the fictional Co Kilkenny village of "Leestown".
But today, the streets of Fair City's Carrigstown are fast-encroaching into the grassy heartlands of the Royal County. Dunboyne has changed almost beyond recognition since its days as a "stunt" village.
As you'd expect with Dublin only 14 miles away, suburbia is advancing fast. Teviot Grove, lying some miles from all this excitement, is a spacious, comfortable modern house on one level with pleasantly high ceilings throughout.
There are two large reception rooms (one has the unexpected feature of a magnificent Adams marble fireplace), five bedrooms, three bathrooms, kitchen-cum-breakfastroom, office, pantry, utility, study, sunroom and family/TV room with double-doors to a courtyard.
While new owners might wish to update some of the colours, fixtures and fittings, the house appears to be very well-built and is in turnkey condition.
Outside, two acres are set in meticulously maintained gardens with a number of different zones: a plantation of deciduous trees; an ornamental garden surrounded by a laurel hedge; a terracotta-tiled patio; an orchard with berry bushes, apple and plum trees; and many rose beds.
Oh, and there's a "secret garden" surrounded by an 8ft beech hedge to allow risqué sunbathing without frightening the horses. And the noble steed is really what this property - along with the remaining 16 acres and outbuildings - is all about.
Now it is possible that horses have a more pampered "lifestyle" at say, Coolmore, where they are presumably rubbed down with Crème de la Mer by cashmere-clad grooms of an evening and stable lads mother-of-pearl-spoon-feed caviar to foals who wouldn't get out of their straw beds for less than €15 million.
But the equine facilities at Teviot Grove really do fall into the five-star category for nags.
Even the most finicky mare could find little to fault here. There are four "superior rooms" in the stable block with timber-panelled ceilings and electrically operated skylights.
A large wintering shed has a concrete feeding area to the front and slurry pit and silage racks inside. The wide forecourt has a separate entrance to the main road, allowing easy access to both stable and yards for machinery or horseboxes.
There's an all-weather wintering paddock with a bark-chipping surface, and a "Horse Walker" - currently sectioned for four horses but easily converted to cater for half-a-dozen.
The grass paddocks are shielded from the road by high timber fences and beech hedging. Goffs is 15 miles away; Tattersalls just seven. Racecourses and hunts are all within easy access.
Who would like this house? A rich Dublin businessman with a passion for all things equine who is keen on privacy and security (electric gates; elaborate alarm system; standby electricity generator) would be a likely purchaser.
And there's no shortage of such men about town.
