Castlemartin, the Co Kildare home and estate of the former billionaire Sir Anthony O'Reilly, is to be so sold to John Malone, the billionaire US businessman behind UPC-owned Liberty Global. The selling price, already agreed at close to €28 million, will be one of the highest figures achieved for a private Irish estate.
Mr Malone is one of a small number of wealthy bidders for the 750-acre luxury estate outside Kilcullen which was recently offered for sale on the international market following a Commercial Court judgement for €22.6 million in favour of AIB last June.
James Meagher of selling agents Knight Frank said that while they had "quite significant interest" in the estate it would be premature to announce a sale. The joint selling agent Paddy Jordan, of Jordan Town and Country, was not contactable.
Mr Malone’s decision to acquire Castlemartin comes only weeks after he also bought the 840-acre Ballylinch Stud at Thomastown, Co Kilkenny as a going concern.
Mount Juliet
It originally formed part of the vast Mount Juliet estate which was established by the McCalmount family in 1914. The estate was purchased in 1987 by the late Tim Mahony, whose family owns
Killeen
Group Holdings. It has continued to run it as a highly successful independently owned stud.
Mr Malone, whose net worth is $7.5 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, has also invested around €150 million on the purchase of three Dublin hotels, the Hilton, Trinity City and the Westin, and one Limerick hotel, The Strand. He is refurbishing Humewood Castle in Co Wicklow, which he bought in 2012 for €8million.
Sir Anthony is currently living in a chateau in Deauville on France’s Normandy coast and also has a tax base at Lyford Cay in the Bahamas. He recently sold a third home, a classical Georgian mansion at 2 Fitzwilliam Square in Dublin 2, for €3.2 million and has been seeking a buyer for a holiday home at Glandore in west Cork.
Sir Anthony has always described Castlemartin as his “spiritual home” where the graves of his parents and two of his grandchildren are to be found in a private graveyard alongside a medieval church he rebuilt.
