This week sees the return of one of south Dublin’s grandest properties, only this time around it means business coming to market after a near two year hiatus with an almost 40 per cent discount.
Standing on a huge site of four acres, Montebello on Killiney Hill Road is a completely private Victorian grande dame that came to market in 2017 seeking a whopping €9million – an eye-watering sum at the time. Unsurprisingly it failed to sell, and now it’s back with a new agent – Lisney – and a brand new price tag of €5.5million.
Continental names favoured by the finer properties in this coastal area stem from comparisons with Italian coastal counterparts; think Sorrento Terrace nearby and Palermo (it was on the market seeking €4million and sold last year for €2.825million). But while Montebello has many strings to its bow – an 8,000sq ft original house with fantastic original features, an 850sq ft gate lodge, stable blocks, an outdoor swimming pool and an informal orchard garden – it does not enjoy that coveted sea view which adds a hefty premium to any asking price.
Agent David Bewley says Montebello “simply wasn’t worth” the original €9 million price set by Savills when it launched, and says he’s banking on Lisney’s “more realistic approach” to win the day. And it just might work, already there have been a couple of parties through the property.
Montebello was the home of the late Dick and Ann Wilson, the family behind Nelson homeopathic remedies and the universal pick-me-up Bach's Rescue Remedy. Keen supporters of the arts from early years in Belfast and then in Dublin when they bought Montebello in the 1960s, they counted among their friends painter TP Flanagan and the poet Seamus Heaney.
Given some strong recent sales and a flurry of off market activity at the upper end, the luxury homes market appears to be having a brief moment. Covid-19 uncertainty is not helping buyer or seller sentiment but Bewley is seeing a marked increase in sales to wealthy overseas buyers, in particular from the UK. “It’s not just quality of life and work from home anywhere that’s driving it, people want to return to be close to elderly parents and family too.”
