Former New York nightclub queen Delia Roche-Kelly is selling her €2m Greystones home - and converted outbuildings by the golf course. Bernice Harrison reports.
A tranquil courtyard of converted stone buildings on the edge of The Burnaby in Greystones is not the location that might immediately spring to mind as the natural home of Delia Roche-Kelly.
She became well known in Ireland in the late 1980s due to the fame of her New York nightclub, Delia's. The East Village club was very much the place to be, particularly popular with the burgeoning wave of Irish immigrants but also with downtown New Yorkers.
The former nightclub owner has been living a much quieter life here for the past few years; after she sold Delia's in the late 1990s, she began spending more time in Ireland, completing a property development that involved the conversion of cut- stone stables and outbuildings into luxury homes.
Before she left for New York, Roche-Kelly lived in "the big house", Killincarrig Manor, with its 400 acres and extensive outbuildings which her father, property develop Matt Gallagher, had bought off Lady Burnaby.
The house was sold after the property slump in the early 1980s - it's now Greystones Golf Club - leaving Roche-Kelly with the cut- stone outbuildings on three acres. It's these three large outbuildings that she has now converted into five two-bedroom houses which are for sale with prices from €795,000 to €2 million. A small one-bedroom apartment is priced at €350,000.
The houses are for sale by private treaty through McDonnell Properties.
It's a particularly attractive setting, right in the heart of The Burnaby directly overlooking the golf links, which means plenty of peace and quiet, open space and surrounding greenery. All the units are very different but all are designed to take maximum advantage of their original features which include cut- stone walls, large windows and high ceilings.
The most impressive house and the largest is Roche-Kelly's own house. Named Killincarrig Manor after her old home, it looks like the sort of barn conversion featured in style magazines.
It has 232sq m (2,500sq ft) and two large bedrooms both with dressing areas and en suite bathrooms, a utility room and a guest toilet. Needless to say, all the rooms are large.
That's downstairs. Upstairs is a stunning open-plan living area that's 17 metres long, with light coming in from windows in three of the walls and exposed roof beams. The kitchen is at one end, the living area with a wood-burning stove at the other and there are two balconies. A separate one-bedroom apartment is being sold with this house.
The four other two-bedroom houses are priced from €795,000 to €1.2 million and all have around 139sq m (1,500sq ft) of space. Large bedrooms and bright spacious livingrooms with high ceilings are a feature of their design. In some units there seems to be scope to carve out an additional bedroom by making dressing areas and en suites smaller. Features include underfloor heating, well-appointed kitchens and wooden floors.
The Burnaby is the most sought-after address in Greystones and, because of the peaceful courtyard setting on the fringes of the golf club and unusual design, the houses in Killincarrig are likely to have broad appeal, particularly to those downsizing from larger houses in the area.
