The Sell: Matt Doran and Kendall Bora sell little corner of Berowra Waters paradise
Sunny Corner Cottage, the Berowra Waters weekender of former Weekend Sunrise host Matt Doran and his wife, Nine’s US bureau chief Kendall Bora, has fetched $2.21m.
NSW
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The recent sale of Sunny Corner Cottage, the Berowra Waters weekender of former Weekend Sunrise host Matt Doran and his wife, Nine’s US bureau chief Kendall Bora, has settled.
Listed with initial $3m hopes, which were revised to $2.5m, the Hawkesbury River waterfront fetched $2.21m through Zakir Abdallaoui at Sotheby’s.
It has been bought by stylist Sheree Dalton, from the Maitland-based Saige Designs.
The four-bedroom, two-bathroom home, next to the famous Peats Bite restaurant, had a Tamsin Johnson-redesign after its $1.75m purchase in mid-2021. It is off-grid with tank water and solar power.
The kitchen has Shiraz marble counters, while the master ensuite comes with twin pedestal basins and claw foot bath. With the feel of a houseboat, there are vintage French sconces, Audoux Minet rope pendants, and repurposed yacht bunker lights.
Set on 1.49ha of north-facing land within the Muogamarra Nature Reserve, they wanted it to feel like a lake house in Muskoka with a Hamptons twist.
The historic 1905 Federation home was originally a schoolhouse, accessible these days only by boat or seaplane, 50km from Sydney. The boat trip takes 10 minutes from Kangaroo Point, near Brooklyn.
For Bora, the laid-back region reminded her of her childhood on the shores of lakes in Canada.
There have been three higher sales at Berowra Waters, which topped out at $4.5m in 2021 for an acreage.
Since its 2023 makeover, Sunny Corner Cottage has been returning $50,000 annually as a $1200-a-night Airbnb offering. It was also a location for advertising campaigns.
It had its own Instagram page with 5700 followers.
The couple, who have moved to Los Angeles, married at the Belle Magazine-featured home in late-2021. Apparently everyone arriving by boat in black tie “gave it a hint of Lake Como”.
In 2022 Doran while docking his boat, lost his wedding ring, which was recovered from the river floor by local diver Nathan Sherwood, who had previously recovered a ring for former local Cate Blanchett.
Doran, now making documentaries, retains 8000 photos on his phone of the sunsets, the misty mornings and their escapades.
CURRUMBIN SALE SLAM DUNK FOR NBA STAR
NBA Hall of Famer Andrew Bogut and wife Jessica have sold their former Currumbin, Gold Coast, home which came with $8m hopes.
The couple are now based on acreage in nearby Mudgeeraba.
It was 2020, when having announced he was departing the NBL’s Sydney Kings, that Bogut offloaded his Sydney abode at Concord home base.
They had bought the six-bedroom brick bungalow with extension in 2018 for $3.5m when he signed a two-year deal to play for the Kings.
The family had previously been Melbourne-based.
The Concord house had high ceilings, which were just perfect for the 213cm (seven-foot) champion, who sold it in 2021 for $4.1m.
The Boguts relocated from Sydney when paying $4.45m for the Currumbin home in South East Queensland in 2019.
Dubbed Copper House for its striking curved copper facade, the HIA award-winning Paul Uhlmann-designed home had been completed in 2017 overlooking Currumbin Estuary.
The three-level home on a 775sq m northwest-facing block has seven bedrooms with views of the hinterland and ocean.
It was built with natural timber, stone, iron, and stainless steel with a copper facade, and features a lift.
The home has been a popular holiday rental, fetching about $5000 a week since they relocated to their 6700sq m Mudgeeraba acreage, which cost $6.45m in 2021.
Kollosche Prestige had the listing.
Bogut, 40, is one of Australia’s most decorated basketballers, being the top pick in the 2005 NBA draft, when selected by the Milwaukee Bucks.
Bogut, who owns a 10 per cent stake in the Sydney Kings, has joined the club as an assistant coach for the 2026 NBL season.
PHILLIPS TO AGAIN BE CROWNED TOP AGENT IN NATION WITH $962M SALES
Alexander Phillips seems set to be declared Australia’s top real estate agent again after topping the Real Estate Business (REB) industry website state-based rankings.
Phillips, of Phillips Pantzer Donnelley, and his support staff, who sell across Sydney’s east, secured a $962m annual tally from 196 sales.
Phillips, with 24 years’ experience, first made the CommBank-sponsored list in 2015 when he ranked second, followed by 10 consecutive top rankings.
His average sale has risen over the decade from $1.8m to $4.9m in 2024, which compares to an average of $2.89m across the top 50 NSW agents.
His best year was amid the pandemic in 2022, when Phillips sold 254 Sydney houses and apartments worth a combined $1.1bn. Phillips also ranks as one of the quickest agents, selling homes in an average of 21 days.
His most recent prestige sale was about $13.25m for the Madeleine Blanchfield-updated Woollahra home of Jarden head of equities John Spencer and wife Kate. His top sale ever was $26m at Queens Ave, Vaucluse, when the Palm Springs-inspired home of medicinal cannabis industry boss Matt Cantelo sold last November.
So far this year, it’s the Richard Cole-designed Panorama House, the Yanko Ave, Bronte home of anaesthetist Dr Erin Cook that sold at $23.5m, in conjunction with Sotheby’s agent James Ball, who shot to fourth place with $477m in sales.
Manly’s Michael Clarke with $871m in sales and Woollahra’s Maclay Longhurst with $523m retained their respective podium placings.
After $403m in sales, West Pennant Hills agent Jennifer Carr was Sydney’s top woman in sixth place, after the Shire’s Susan Hibbert dropped to 15th.
Entry on to the REB list is voluntary.
The top interstate agent was Helen Yan, at Ray White Balwyn in Melbourne’s east, with 135 sales totalling $349m.
KYRGIOS ACES IT WITH RENO TRIUMPH
Tennis star Nick Kyrgios, who has pulled out of Wimbledon later this month due to a knee injury, has sold his Kensington bolthole on auction eve for $1,925,000.
It was a triumphant conclusion to seesawing price guidance during its marketing campaign.
The penthouse on Anzac Parade was bandied around as potentially making a huge windfall for Kyrgios, who had paid $1.6m in 2022.
He has subsequently renovated the kitchen, installed new flooring, and given it a lick of paint.
Its PPD selling agent Tristan Oddi had put a guide of $1.8m on the two-level space, before slashing it by $200,000 mid-campaign. The higher than expected price was secured on the day before Saturday’s scheduled auction in a purchase by a Rose Bay family.
Kyrgios’s buyers agent, Jack Henderson, who secured the apartment for the tennis ace three years ago, initially had harboured even higher price hopes for the apartment that he noted was an “extremely scarce” double-storey space with city views.
The 130sq m, three-bedroom apartment, has a roof terrace, plus parking for two cars.
“We bought the property for $1.6m plus stamp duty and costs at $64,000; spending a further $100,000 renovating for a grand total of $1.764m,” Henderson posted as the campaign kicked off to his 138,000 Instagram followers.
“Nick didn’t have to hit one tennis ball to make these dollars.”
GREEN LIGHT AT LAST FOR THE CHIMES
There was no sentiment, just ex parte process, when NSW Land & Environment Court Justice Sarah Pritchard ruled against the lone holdout owner defying developer Time & Place plans to redevelop The Chimes complex at Potts Point.
Mitchell Griffiths of Rapsey Griffiths was appointed trustee for the compulsory sale of the studio apartment at the $1.4m court-ordered price, less costs. A previous $1.6m without prejudice offer had been withdrawn.
The studio apartment resident, who paid $44,000 in 1982, has not agreed to the dislodgement deal, which stems from the 2020 scheme to buy all 80 studio units plus 27 car spaces in the 1964 Macleay St block.
Time & Place, which now has development funding from tycoon James Packer, achieved the 75 per cent compulsory acquisition threshold under the state government’s strata renewal legislation several years ago, with the buy-up costing $100m plus.
Time & Place barrister Janet McKelvey told the court Griffiths had done NSW’s only previous trustee strata transfer, though that was for short-term accommodation premises in Haymarket. This matter could end in an unseemly eviction, but presumably not until the redevelopment proposal gets through the NSW government’s state-significant development process.
FINE ACREAGE UP FOR GRABS
Phoebe Burgess, the former NRL WAG, has now given $2.25 million guidance for her Southern Highlands listing.
Acre Hill, the Burradoo estate that has so far garnered 1600-plus realestate.com.au page views, has been listed by Ray White agents Charlotte and Hugh Hanrahan.
The 6949sq m Moss Vale Rd property with a four-bedroom, three-bathroom house cost $1.725 million in 2021. It was last listed as a $995 weekly rental.
RESORTING TO ANOTHER MOVE
Tom Misner, who founded the SAE Institute in the 1970s and sold the audio college for $300 million in 2010, has decided to flip Rockpool Farms, his recent $15 million luxury Bangalow acquisition through Sothebys International.
The resort on the 12ha mango farm had been built by tourism operator Ian Pope and Kate Thorley.
It was bought by Misner last November, who will now settle elsewhere in the hinterland.
BEALE SCORES $770K SALE
The 95-cap Wallaby legend, now Western Force outside back, Kurtley Beale and his wife Maddi have sold their Moore Park Rd, Paddington apartment for $770,000.
McGrath agent Georgia Cleary had given a $780,000 guide for the ground-floor one-bedroom apartment that cost $380,000 in 2007 – the same year that Beale played his first game for the Waratahs as an 18-year-old.
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