Lansdowne’s high-end scheme
THE Celtic Phoenix, as satirist Paul Howard dubs the economic resurgence in his Ross O’Carroll Kelly franchise, is rising fast from the ashes of the Celtic Tiger in Ballsbridge, where now-bankrupt developer Sean Dunne dreamed of turning the neighbourhood into Dublin’s answer to Knightsbridge. Construction on Lansdowne Place, Chartered Land’s pavilions-style apartment scheme on the corner of Lansdowne Road and Shelbourne Road, has surged ahead, with six of the seven buildings due to be finished in 2019.
The site, which was home to Trinity College’s Botanic Gardens in the 19th century, was once part of a boom-era plot by Dunne to turn it into a high-rise development after paying a recordbreaking €379m for the former Jurys’ and Berkeley Court hotels.
When it’s completed, Lansdowne Place will comprise 215 apartments, duplexes and penthouses with hotel-style facilities. Since the marketing suite opened its doors in June 2017, 75pc of the released units have been sold off-plan. Wealthy Irish buyers living here and abroad have dominated sales to date.
Late last year, an unnamed Irish businessman bought a penthouse measuring the equivalent of one-eighth of an acre at Lansdowne Place for €6.5m, setting a new record for a private sale apartment in Dublin. The price exceeded by €1.5m the €5m that property businessman Stephen Vernon reportedly paid for a rooftop apartment at the development. The cheapest units currently available at Lansdowne Place are one-bed, 782-sq ft apartments priced from €800,000. A twobed apartment extending over 1,072 sq ft costs from €925,000, while two-bed-plusstudy units spanning 1,528 sq ft are selling for at least €2.1m.
A two-bed penthouse with 1,591 sq ft of space is priced from €2.25m.
The tranche also contains the largest penthouse ever to go on the market in Ireland: the four-bed-plus-study penthouse, which went on sale in April, costs from €7.5m and has 7,700 sq ft of accommodation across its internal space and outdoor terraces, making it bigger than many a Georgian mansion.
All the buildings are set within new landscaped gardens that incorporate a water feature, lawns, garden squares and children’s play areas.
The gardens retain original specimen trees such as a strawberry tree and the Richard Turner wrought-iron railings that bounded the Trinity College Botanic Garden for a century.
Lansdowne Place was designed by architectural firm O’Mahony Pike, while London-based interior design house Goddard Littlefair, known for its work on five-star hotels, was responsible for the interiors, in its first-ever project in Ireland.
The apartments and penthouses have high-coffered ceilings, floor-to-ceiling windows, oak flooring, sunrooms and balconies. Upper-level apartments and penthouses command views of the Aviva Stadium, the city, and Dublin Bay. Off the open-plan living and dining area, the units have a custom-designed kitchen that was handcrafted in Ireland and was engraved with the Lansdowne Place emblem.
Each custom-made kitchen has contemporary-style handleless, soft-close drawers and doors and a bespoke hidden larder. The bathrooms in the penthouses have marble finishes, while the apartments have limestone floor tiles. There are custom-designed built-in wardrobes to all the bedrooms, with walk-in wardrobes in some units.
The Templeton building, part of which houses the Lansdowne Residents’ Club, has already been completed, and the first residents will move in during the new year. The club itself has 6,500 sq ft of space arranged over two floors to accommodate a classically-designed lounge, a cinema, a library, private dining facilities, a gym, sauna, beauty treatment rooms, meeting space, and a 24-hour concierge service led by Liam Guerin, the former restaurant manager of nearby Roly’s Bistro. Buyers can also use the club’s own car-sharing service.
Viewings of the marketing suite, which has two show-apartments, are mostly by appointment, though an open viewing will be held from 5pm to 7pm on November
13. Two more show-apartments — one a
3,550-sq ft roof-garden penthouse and one a 2,100-sq ft duplex, will open in late spring.