Sinéad O’Connor’s former Wicklow home has been sold for €1.295m, according to figures from the Residential Property Price Register.
The seafront Victorian style home at Bray was put on the market by estate agents, HJ Byrne last December with a guide price of €1.295m.
A “sale agreed” sign was erected at the property in March and now an official entry on the Property Price Register has confirmed that the sale closed on July 16th, meeting the guide price.
At 3,713 sq ft, “Montebello”, as it is named, is well over three times the size of an average family home and includes six bedrooms and three bathrooms.
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The €1.295m sale is one of nine €1m+ residential property sales to take place in the in-demand seaside town of Bray to date this year.
The move to put the property on the market came five months after An Coimisiún Pleanála refused planning permission to then owner, Rachel Carthy, to convert the property into five apartments.
A number of local residents opposed the planned apartment scheme and An Coimisiún Pleanála found that the proposal would result in an incongruous structure in terms of design.
The commission, is dismissing its own inspector’s recommendation to grant planning permission, found that the scheme would adversely affect the architectural character of the seafront area.
The property has become a site of pilgrimage for fans of the late singer, who lived in the property for 15 years.
Ms O’Connor died at the age of 56 on July 26th 2023 of natural causes at her London home, and in August 2023, mourners left flowers outside the home as thousands of people gathered on the seafront to see her funeral cortege make its way past.
Fans returned last year from as far away as New Zealand to pay homage to the ‘Nothing Compares to U’ singer.
The seafront building has been in the public eye ever since Ms O’Connor bought it at the height of the property boom in 2007, for €1.7m, only to slash the asking price to €950,000 when she put it back on the market in 2021.
The 1860s double-fronted six bed house facing the promenade later sold for €1.04m in November 2021.
One objection lodged on behalf of next door neighbours on Strand Road claimed that the scheme “is an excessive and far too commercial development that fails to have due regard to the protection of the residential amenities of adjoining houses”.
The objection, by Ceceline and Frank Power - drafted by Peter P. Gillett & Associates - contended that “the quest to maximise the amount of development on site undermines the existing quality of the living environment that our clients enjoy and that would be reasonable to protect”.
