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THE NEW JAPANESE owners of Charlie Haughey’s palatial Abbeville estate have taken the first steps towards developing the property into a luxury resort.
Planning documents lodged with Fingal County Council also show several of the outbuildings in the 18th Century Kinsealy complex have fallen into disrepair ahead of the planned overhaul.
The 247-acre estate where the former taoiseach lived for over 35 years was bought by the family behind the Toyoko Inn chain of budget hotels in 2013. The buyer’s identity wasn’t revealed until earlier this year.
However plans recently filed on behalf of the company set out what would be “phase one” of a development that was likely to include a hotel and conference centre, golf course, fitness centre and other recreational facilities.
The initial stage involved overhauling the estate’s run-down stables, barn and other outbuildings, while talks between the owners and the council on a masterplan were expected to start within months.
Charlie’s debts
Haughey first sold the property to Celtic Tiger developers Manor Park Homes for €45 million in 2003 to settle the legal fees from his Moriarty Tribunal appearances and a €6.3 million bill for unpaid taxes.
He was allowed to keep living there until his 2006 death as part of the deal. The developers had already been given the go ahead to build a 70-bedroom hotel, 18-hole championship golf course and 46 homes of between four and six bedrooms on the site.
But the approval expired in 2012 after the company went bust and the Japanese hoteliers eventually snapped up the property for an estimated €5.5 million.
These images supplied with the application show the state of dilapidation many of the outlying buildings have fallen into:
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Cab should have took it off him.
70 bed hotel, championship golf course, luxury houses…. It’s like a time warp back to the year 2005.
Bet the developers were ragin’ they didn’t get the f**ker out in 2003. They’d probably still have gone bust but at least they would have had an asset to flog worth more than €5.5.
Considering who owned Manor Park Homes and their *ahem* donations to various political campaigns I hope he IS raging.Couldn’t have happened to a ‘nicer’ guy.
Don’t worry, he seems to be doing ok:
http://www.independent.ie/business/irish/manor-parks-joe-moran-to-rebuild-empire-31171637.html
The outhouses are dilapidated, the majority of the estate and house seems fine though. Ridiculous headline to get clicks, but I suppose “Haugheys stables in dire need of repair” doesn’t have the same ring to it.
He should be dug up and dumped in the barn
I just did it .
Wonder who is paying for that writedown
The house should be taken in State ownership and used as a Lemass / Haughey museum
Those pictures are like a metaphor for his reputation …
A stylish man I hope they erect a statue of him somewhere in the new development.
yeah, Under the septic tank
‘The man who WILL be king, Brian’
Did the sharp Haughey sell it not so much to settle his debts but perhaps with some wisdom or foreknowledge of the collapse of the banking system? After all he was an accountant – one of the practitioners of the cancer of society!
Looks like Bank of Scotland got caught for this one hook, line and sinker.
http://www.breakingnews.ie/ireland/building-company-wound-up-by-high-court-549657.html
I’d level it on the grounds of taste alone. Awful bloody lump.
Augean stables more like !
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