Straffan - The K Club

The K Club

On the death of Bertram Barton in a hunting accident in 1927 the scale of the losses on the estate, £4,000 per year, became apparent. The staff of 50 outdoor and 16 indoor employees was unsustainable. Derrick Barton laid off most of the staff and demolished part of the house before selling the house and estate for £15,000 to motorcycle manufacturer John Ellis in 1949. Derrick Barton moved to Straffan Glebe House (53°18′51″N 6°36′45″W / 53.31406°N 6.61240°W / 53.31406; -6.61240.) for a time. The last five private owners of Straffan House followed in quick succession: car importer Stephen O'Flaherty (1960), film producer Kevin McClory (1973), Iranian air force founder and minister in the Shah’s government Nadar Djhanbani (1977, shortly before the downfall of the Shah’s government and his execution), developer Patrick Gallagher (1979) and property magnate Alan Ferguson (1981) who invested £6m in Straffan House but never lived there.

Entrepreneur Michael Smurfit who was searching for a suitable old house and estate to develop as a country club recruited Ray Carroll, former manager at the Grosvenor Hotel in London to help with the task. Carroll recommended Straffan above seven other estates he had examined. In 1988 Straffan house was sold for £7m to the Jefferson Smurfit company for use as a golf course and hotel. A further £35m was spent developing the house as a hotel under a scheme negotiated with the government to produce 200 jobs in return for tax breaks for investors. In 1991 Straffan was opened as a 31-bedroom hotel. In 2004 a wing was added to double the size of the hotel and a granite porch from Ballynegal Co Westmeath used to bring the two wings together.

Straffan put in its first bid to host the Ryder Cup in 1988, before the course had even been built, for the 1993 event. In 1990 the north course, designed by Arnold Palmer, was completed. Straffan staged the PGA cup in 1991 and Irish professional Championship in 1992. As a result of a £1 million sponsorship offer form the Smurfit Group, the European Open moved its annual home from Walton Heath to Straffan in 1995. In 1999 Straffan’s bid for the Ryder Cup was eventually accepted by the European PGA. The tournament, staged in September 2006, proved to be the most profitable in the history of the tournament. The south course was completed in 2003 and used for the European Open of 2004. In 2002 Madison Dearborm took over the Jefferson Smurfit corporation and divested itself of the K Club. Michael Smurfit purchased the hotel and estate and acquired a further 80 acres (320,000 m2) on the opposite side of the river for €115m in 2004, with the support of property developer Gerry Gannon. To fund this expansion 81 housing units were developed on the course and sold for €2.5m each.