Most developers have now transferred their assets to spouses

Gayle Killilea - Mrs Sean Dunne - owns most expensive home
Mystery owner of mansion sold for €57m is revealed as former journalist
Tom Lyons
As a journalist her job was to prise secrets from the rich and famous. But for the last four years Gayle Killilea, the wife of property developer Sean Dunne, has managed to keep a secret of her own under cover: she owns the most expensive home ever bought in Ireland.

Walford, a mansion on Shrewsbury Road in the Dublin 4 embassy district, was bought for €57m in 2005 by a trust named Matsack Nominees.

Dinner-party speculation at the time linked Ireland’s richest men — including Dermot Desmond and Denis O’Brien — to the sale.

With a guide price of €30m, the sale of the seven-bedroom house on 1.8 acres was a high watermark of the property boom. The price worked out at €13,750 per sq ft.

Despite the rumours, its ownership remained a mystery. The Sunday Times has now confirmed that Killilea became the beneficial owner on October 9, 2006.

The trust has twice applied for planning permission to redevelop the Edwardian redbrick. However, wealthy residents of Shrewsbury Road — including Dermot Gleeson, the former attorney-general, and Blacktie owner Niall O’Farrell — have never known for certain who was behind these plans.

Sean Dunne has repeatedly denied that he owns the property. In 2006 he issued legal proceedings against The Sunday Business Post for claiming he had acquired it. It is not clear why the property magnate needed to go to such lengths to deny ownership of Walford when he could have said that it was in his wife’s name.

Mountbrook, the development group owned by the Carlow-born developer, spent €570m buying land in Ballsbridge between 2005 and 2006. It paid €370m for the Jurys and Berkeley Court hotels in Ballsbridge and €200m buying the AIB head office building just up the road in Ballsbridge.

Dunne added further to his portfolio by swapping a building he owned in the docklands for Hume House, another building near his hotels in Ballsbridge.

Dunne’s property splurge was funded by a syndicate of non-Irish banks led by Bank of Scotland (Ireland). It is not clear how his wife, 34, a former journalist with the Sunday Independent, funded her acquisition. Irish Nationwide has been used previously by her husband in personal property transactions. The society could not confirm last week whether or not it was involved.When contacted by The Sunday Times yesterday, the Dunnes declined to comment on the ownership of Walford.

Matsack has made several attempts to redevelop Walford, which backs onto the grounds of Old Belvedere rugby club. Two years ago the trust applied for planning permission to demolish the building and replace it with a three-storey mansion including a rear balcony, swimming pool and staff quarters. Two four-bedroom houses on the grounds were also proposed. The planners granted permission to build the two houses but refused to allow the old house to be destroyed.

After this failure, a Dublin 4 property agent approached wealthy individuals to guage interest in buying the property. They were given one week to say if they were interested, but no credible bid was received.

This summer, preparatory work started on the site, prompting speculation that a new plan was being prepared. Ground-clearing has been completed around the old house which was formerly owned by Patrick Duggan, an accountant who moved there with his family in 1956.

Last week, Killilea launched her first business, a supermarket trading as D4 Stores, on the grounds of the former Jurys hotel in Ballsbridge now owned by her husband.

The shop has become embroiled in a political row as to whether it has the proper planning permission and licences to trade.

Killilea said that she believed the store would be a success among the residents of Ballsbridge, many of whom, she claimed, had been “wiped out financially”.

She and Dunne were officially married in a lavish 17thcentury villa in Santa Margherita in Italy in July 2004. Three months earlier they had taken part in a ceremony in Thailand with just two witnesses.

Their 14-day summer bash in Italy cost an estimated €1.5m, which included hiring the Christina O, the $50m (€35m) yacht formerly owned by Greek shipping billionaire Aristotle Onassis to sail their guests around the Mediterranean. “If it was good enough for Jackie Kennedy, I thought it’s good enough for me,” Killilea remarked at the time.

Guests at the wedding included Michael Fingleton, the former chief executive of Irish Nationwide, rugby player Ronan O’Gara and the clothes designer Karen Millen. Bertie Ahern, the then taoiseach, telephoned the couple on the yacht to convey his best wishes.

melekalikimaka wrote: »

we'd all do the same... in fairness

melekalikimaka wrote: »

well its still possible here, if you were in their shoes no doubt youd do the same