THE FIRE-damaged ruins of a Victorian house of architectural and historical significance, along with its heavily wooded 12.5 acre grounds in Rathfarnham, Dublin 16, are being offered for sale at €2.9 million through Colliers International.
Marlay Grange, the former 10-bedroom house beside the public park at Grange Road in Rathfarnham, has had a troubled history, and has lain empty for more than a decade.
It was bought by property developer and philanthropist Niall Mellon in 2007 for more than €8 million, but was destroyed by fire in July 2010. He had acquired it from the British government, who planned to use it as a new ambassador’s residence, after buying it in 2000 for more than €10 million, but never moved in.
It was not covered by insurance when it went on fire.
Marcus Magnier of the selling agents said yesterday he was hopeful that new owners would rebuild the cut-stone house, one of the best examples of Gothic revival architecture in Ireland.
“It is a blank canvas at the moment, but if you spent around €1 million rebuilding it you would have a hell of a house with 560sq m (6,000sq ft) of space.”
The house, with its truncated pyramidal roof, was designed by Dublin architect John McCurdy, who also designed Dublin’s Hibernian Hotel.
It has great privacy, since it is approached up a long driveway from the formal entrance, with its conventional gate lodge also in need of repair.
The house stands on extensive gardens, neglected since the fire, among flowing lawns and mature woodlands alongside two ornamental ponds and a semicircular formal garden running along the south gable of the house.
The grounds are bounded on one side by the Three Rock Rovers hockey grounds, on another side by the Grange Golf Club and on the remaining frontage by part of the 200-acre public parklands.
The British Foreign Office bought Marlay Grange after selling Glencairn and its extensive grounds in Sandyford, Dublin 18, for security reasons. However, after the Belfast Agreement it bought Glencairn back, at a considerable loss.
