Amy Huberman and Brian O'Driscoll are selling their home in Dublin 14, with an asking price of just under €1.4 million. The actor and the former Ireland rugby captain quietly put 1 Larchfield Road, in Goatstown, up for sale through the Savills agency.
The house has not been listed on property websites, as the high-profile couple hope to sell it privately rather than place it on the open market. Their agent is understood to have been hosting private walk-throughs of the four-bedroom home since mid-September but has yet to find a buyer. A spokesman for Savills declined to comment.
The couple will be keen to seal the deal given that an extensive refurbishment is well under way on their €1.8 million home on Palmerston Road in Rathmines, Dublin 6, a substantial Victorian redbrick that they bought in 2016.
The couple soon ran up against problems when neighbours strenuously opposed their plans for a three-storey rear extension and a new single-storey side and rear extension. The proposals were finally given the green light on appeal in January, a full year after they had lodged their original application. The renovation, which began in late summer, is unlikely to be finished in time for the couple and their two children to move in before Christmas.
O’Driscoll bought their current home, just off Goatstown Road, in 2005. It has since been extended twice, to the side and to the rear. The entrance has also been widened, with black gates and pillars erected. The additions and improvements give the detached property a substantial footprint of about 280sq m (3,000sq ft) on a good-sized garden site.
In August, 57 Larchfield Road, a smaller semi-detached four-bed, sold for €797,750; in September, 11 Larchfield Park, a nicely presented three-bed semi around the corner, with 147sq m (1,582sq ft) and a good-sized back garden, sold for €793,000. This would pitch the €1.4 million price tag for the O'Driscoll-Huberman house at the going rate for the area of €5,000 per square metre, or just under €500 per square foot.
Huberman and O'Driscoll both have high media profiles. They have about two million Twitter and Instagram followers between them; Finding Joy, a flagship comedy series written by and starring Huberman, is airing in a prime-time slot on RTÉ; and O'Driscoll, a rugby pundit with BT Sport and Off the Ball, recently made an acclaimed documentary, Shoulder to Shoulder, chronicling the game's political past in Ireland.
Now it’s a question of whether premium buyers will be prepared to pay for setting up home in the footprint of Ireland’s highest-profile couple.
