Country seat of two Dukes can be bought for the price of a Ballsbridge semi-detached
Asking price: €5.77m
Agent: Savills Dublin (01) 6634357; Savills Belfast (0044) 774 039 3733
Indian-born British resident Gopichand Hindjua was Britain’s richest man with a net worth of €41bn when he passed away in November. ‘GP’, as he was known, headed up a multifaceted business empire employing 200,000 people.
He lived in a London city mansion comprising four interconnected six-storey Georgians at Carlton Terrace in swishy Westminster.
The exterior of Ely Lodge, Enniskillen, Co Fermanagh, which sits on its own island
So consider that 50 years ago, Britain’s richest man lived in a stable on an island in the middle of a lake in Ireland.
In 1976, three years before his death, Robert Grosvenor, better known as the 5th Duke of Westminster, sat on a fortune estimated to be worth €2bn, comprising one of the world’s oldest real estate empires. That’s the equivalent of about €14bn today.
That fortune, founded on 18th century leases in London and shielded by trusts, would only grow in the 21st century. When his son Gerald inherited in 2016 and became the 6th Duke of Westminster, he became the sixth richest man in Britain, with a fortune of €11bn (worth about €22bn in today’s money).
Robert Grosvenor, the Duke of Westminster
Robert, who bore a noted resemblance to his American billionaire contemporary, Howard Hughes, would marry society beauty Viola Maud Lyttleton, the daughter of a Viscount, and they would have three children: Leonora, Jane and Gerald. Robert headed up the Grosvenor Group, which was estimated to own 300 acres in London’s Mayfair and Belgravia districts, key properties all over the world plus agri land holdings running into hundreds of thousands of acres.
Lady Viola Grosvenor, the Duchess of Westminster
However, unlike the modern billionaires who like their huge residences in capital cities and the Riviera, Robert preferred a relatively modest country-facing life at Ely Lodge outside Enniskillen in Co Fermanagh. It’s located on its own island in Lough Erne six miles outside Enniskillen. The property has recently come to market with an asking price circa €5.5m.
A corridor inside Ely Lodge, Enniskillen, Co Fermanagh
The seven-bedroom mansion also includes five cottages on the grounds, along with a 2.5 acre walled garden and arboretum. And for those who enjoy fly fishing or duck hunting, the island in Lough Erne has almost three miles of water frontage with jetties and boat houses on its 214.5 acres. It’s also got shooting rights attached for 3,000 acres.
For a €5.77m price tag, its location just over the border means it could offer some serious value for a country estate buyer based in the Republic. Despite 30 years of the peace dividend, country estates just over the border have not fully realised the value benefits and still offer much more for the money than most of their counterparts south of the border. Comparable or smaller country estates in the Republic are generally priced at between €2.5m and €5m more. Semi-detached homes in Shrewsbury and Ailesbury Roads in D4 have achieved similar prices, while a five-bed detached house in Dublin’s Ballsbridge is currently asking twice as much.
A dining area at Ely Lodge, Enniskillen, Co Fermanagh
And not many can say that their home was visited by Barack Obama, who landed his helicopter on its front lawn when attending the 39th G8 Summit hosted at the nearby five-star Lough Erne Golf Resort in 2013. His crack security team, meantime, concealed themselves in the walled garden.
The ruin of the original house is nearby. It was built by the Loftus family (Earls of Ely) in 1813 and was blown up in 1870 by John Loftus, the 4th Marquess, in order to impress his friends during his 21st birthday party celebrations. He had intended building a new house at the time. John, who inherited his fortune aged eight, instead diverted the funds into Loftus Hall , the renovations of which bankrupted the dynasty before his early death at 39. The current Ely Lodge is housed in what was this home’s elaborate stables complex.
The music room at Ely Lodge, Enniskillen, Co Fermanagh
It was sold by the Cathcart family in the 1950s to Robert Grosvenor, who made it his family home. The Grosvenors sold it to his land agent Mr Plunkett who in turn sold it to the current owners, the Cathcarts, the same family who sold it to Grosvenor.
A main reception room at Ely Lodge, Enniskillen, Co Fermanagh
Today, it is entered at one end into a hall with a staircase. There’s another entrance at the centre of the complex via a brightly lit and glazed orangerie which leads into the second hall with its own crafted staircase. To the right is the formal dining room, leading in turn to the kitchen and breakfast room. Off this are a series of stores and a WC. At the very back of the house off the kitchen is a vast pantry equivalent to the size of a modest reception. Also at the back is the gun room.
A sitting room at Ely Lodge, Enniskillen, Co Fermanagh
A corridor from the main hall also leads to the small drawing room and a sitting room. The main drawing room is to the left off the main hall – an elongated affair leading into a reception hall serving another entrance – and there’s another staircase here. Tucked away on this side of the house is the study. Upstairs there are seven bedrooms and the master chamber has its own en suite bathroom, as well as a substantial walk-in dressing room.
The bathroom at Ely Lodge comes with a stand alone tub
Born in 1910, Robert Grosvenor was elected twice as Ulster Unionist MP for Fermanagh/South Tyrone before retiring in 1964. Grosvenor’s modesty, passed on to his own son Gerald, might have had a lot to do with the fact that he wasn’t born with a title. After his cousin the 3rd Duke died in 1963, it passed to his older brother, also Gerald. At this point, the UK establishment felt Robert was now ‘in the running’ and therefore considered it wise to’ title him up’ as Lord Robert Grosvenor.
A small bridge on the grounds of Ely Lodge, Enniskillen, Co Fermanagh
The brothers served during the war, and Gerald suffered a bad leg injury from an exploding German shell. He died of cancer in 1967, at a time when vast inheritances were being taxed to the hilt in Britain (by 40pc). But canny Ulsterman Robert mounted an unorthodox legal charge against the tax man, based on a law that inheritance would go tax free if the deceased had been killed in the war.
An aerial view of Ely Lodge, Enniskillen, Co Fermanagh
While other aristocrats lost their shirts upon inheriting, Robert emerged victorious from his 12-year battle, in which he proved that his brother had died as a result of cancer, in turn caused by his war injury. Thus, de facto, the 4th Duke was killed by the war.
In an interview for The Impartial Reporter a number of years ago, Robert’s son Gerald the 6th Duke, spoke fondly of growing up at Ely Lodge.
“I suppose one’s endearing memory was the most perfect childhood one could ever have. It had all the ingredients of the excitement on the lough, living with nature.”
Savills seeks €5.77m for Ely Lodge.