A new development of 22 expensive holiday homes has gone on sale at Mount Juliet golf and country club in Co Kilkenny. Three-bedroom lodges are priced at £460,000, while fourbedroom homes cost £525,000.
Nine of the 22 lodges have already been reserved, mainly by Dublin-based business and professional families.
The latest housing phase at Mount Juliet comes at a time when several other country clubs are also planning to sell houses and apartments.
The K Club in Co Kildare has secured planning permission for 60 apartments and a few miles away at Maynooth, the conversion of the Carton Estate into a hotel, golf and country club will also include a housing element. In Wicklow, the owners of Druids Glen are shortly to proceed with a small scheme of apartments and houses on the edge of the golf course. Another of Ireland's leading country clubs, Galway Bay, has already completed a holiday village overlooking the golf course on the eastern side of Galway Bay.
The setting for the Mount Juliet lodges could not be more different. The homes are carefully hidden away on a delightful sloping site surrounded by beech, ash and oak trees.
The entrance to the cluster of houses runs along the 12th fairway, one of the most scenic parts of the 1,500-acre estate.
The choice of a secluded site for the latest homes - to be known as Walton's Grove - underlines the management's sensitive approach to new housing on the estate. Most of the residential accommodation already in use is located in four courtyards. A number of individual sites, discreetly hidden away in the woodlands, are for sale from £250,000.
The specifications in the new lodges are everything one expects in this price range. They have luxuriously roomy proportions - 2,340 sq ft in the three-bedroom units and 2,858 sq ft in the four-bedroom. The three-bedroom showhouse is dominated by a stunning double-height, split-level diningroom and drawingroom, designed for entertaining on a fairly lavish scale. The end wall has a massive window to capitalise on the lovely rural views, as well as filling the room with light. There is a large, open fireplace in the living area to supplement the gas central heating.
An attractive oak wooden floor starts inside the double entrance doors and runs through to the diningroom.
The kitchen will undoubtedly impress even the most discerning. It is unashamedly modern and stylish with Shaker-type wall and floor units, tiled floor and polished granite worktops. To complete the kitchen area, there is a handy utility room off it with a door leading out to a covered golf buggy bay. And to ensure that this facility is used, new residents are to be given their own golf shuttle, which can carry up to four adults.
One of the three bedrooms is on the ground floor and, like the others, has an en suite bathroom. The main bedroom is particularly spacious and comes with a walk-in dressingroom.
People buying the lodges will get free entrance to the golf club but will have to pay the annual sub of £1,650. Mount Juliet's favourable reputation among golfers has meant that it is now apparently earning over £1 million annually on green fees, making it the third busiest course after Ballybunion and Killarney.
Mount Juliet's appeal will undoubtedly be strengthened by the eventual opening of the proposed N7 motorway between Dublin and Waterford with a spur road linking up with Kilkenny.
Pat Hegarty, managing director of Mount Juliet Properties, says the new motorway will cut travelling time from Dublin to Kilkenny to a little over one hour. The first batch of new homes built on the estate were bought mainly by British and US businessmen. Irish buyers are now the dominant force.
