Pity there is no State cash left to buy majestic estate

The public would gain a lot more pleasure from the Lyons Estate than from land soon to be bought on their behalf

I SUPPOSE it is ludicrous to suggest that the Government should buy the late Tony Ryan’s Lyons Estate in Co Kildare at a time when the public purse is under severe strain bailing out the banks and keeping 400,000 people on the dole.

Presumably there is virtually nothing in the kitty for heritage projects, never mind enough to splash out on a Georgian pile. Then €80 million is a lot of money for a house on 600 acres at a time when the property market is on its knees and country estate agents say that they can barely get €20,000 an acre for the very best of agricultural land.

It just wouldn’t look good for the nation to go buying up the home of a multi-millionaire, though in the long run the public would get a lot more pleasure from Lyons than it will from owning some of the poorly-located, horribly-overvalued land that theNational Asset Management Agency is setto absorb at the taxpayers’ expense.

Lyons is not your ordinary Irish estate. It is neither out of the way, nor down at heel, nor gone to seed, nor heavily mortgaged. It is not one of those slightly depressing places with a mile of leaky guttering, weeds poking up through the driveway and grim, well-bred owners parked by the Aga in the basement, desperate to cash in. In other words, it is not the Great Irish House of old. It is something much better than that – an intact estate, with a vast and beautiful parkland and an important interior full of treasures, all of it so immaculately restored that it is good for at least another century. The contents alone have been valued at €11 million.

The super-wealthy Ryan family are not getting out because they cannot afford to run the estate. It is simply that they have plenty of other houses to be living in. Lyons was their father’s favourite project but then there were others, including fabulous homes in London, Ibiza, the Bahamas and Kentucky.

Money-no-object refurbishments can be dangerous – think excessively-shiny marble flooring, ballroom-sized kitchens and flat screens on every available surface – but Tony Ryan, who could be rough in business, had great taste and sensibility. He was an aesthete and a perfectionist and beautiful houses were his hobby. He poured millions into Lyons in a way that would terrify your average property developer or entrepreneur seeking a speedy return on their investment.

Over 100 craftspeople were employed every day for 2½ years. He did it with no more aim in mind than to recreate a perfect Irish estate to enjoy, though not all year round. He lived between London and the Bahamas and in other locations and died a tax exile.

Lyons was not for developing – though he did build an entire village of houses on the site of the original cluster of estate buildings on the Grand Canal. He would have shuddered at the notion of a hotel or a golf course nudging up against the main house. He did not relish property speculation, said a former employee who claims that the property boom confused him – “he couldn’t understand how a patch of land on the Naas Road could be worth more than say a palace in Rome or Paris. He just didn’t get it, and now, isn’t he proved right.”

Lyons is on a par with the European palaces he admired. From the grand wrought iron gates in, it is probably the finest example of a Georgian restoration the country has ever seen, and that’s from a source within the Georgian Society which would have been on high alert for signs of a shoddy development at Lyons after Ryan bought the estate in the mid-1990s.

At that stage it was considered virtually unsaleable. The house was the original white elephant, not as elegant as Carton, not as stately as Castletown. And it was in an awful state, having been run as an agriculture college by UCD for decades. The roof was about to cave in and there was just one fireplace.

Three years later, when he had almost finished the house, he invited me down to have a look. He had taken full advantage of a tax scheme which allowed him reclaim part of the refurbishment costs and the house was to be opened to the public as a result. He was busy furnishing it with the best of Irish antiques and as we spoke he took calls from his runners in London who had been buying for the house.

“When you have a home of this size, it’s not just the furniture you need but all the little things,” he said, puffing away on a cigar.In the 10 years of the crazy property development that followed, I’ve seen nothing to match the elegance and beauty of Lyons.

For now, life at Lyons goes on. Full-time gardeners and household staff keep the grass trimmed and the fires lit and the furniture dusted. A spokesperson for the family said this week the estate is to be marketed abroad, not surprisingly since our own rich list is dwindling. The sale will most likely be handled through agents in New York. Don’t expect an open viewing anytime soon.