Late media executive Sam Chisholm’s pride and joy sells
The farm of late media executive Sam Chisholm, which had a price tag of $30 million, has sold to the son of one of Australia’s most famous pastoralists. Who’s buying what, with real estate insider Jonathan Chancellor.
NSW
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Bundarbo Station, the cattle farm of the late media executive Sam Chisholm and his wife Sue at Jugiong, has been bought by the entrepreneur Markus Kahlbetzer, who heads the BridgeLane Group investment company.
He is the son of one of Australia’s most famous pastoralists, John Dieter Kahlbetzer, who founded the Twynam Agricultural Group in the early 1970s.
The 38-year-old Kahlbetzer heads the investment group that is only the third owner of the property since its pioneer settlement.
The property was taken up in the 1840s by the Osborne family, who held some 65,000 acres.
It was owned by the family for 150 years until sold in 1995 for $2.7 million to the Chisholms.
Set on the Murrumbidgee River, near Yass, the 2400ha Bundarbo became a passion of Chisholm, especially after he stepped away from the television industry where he worked both locally and internationally, at times for Channel 9 in Australia and for BSkyB in the UK.
It was home to Hazeldean blood commercial Angus breeding herd comprising around 1100 Angus breeders. Bundarbo Station had also been run as a successful Merino sheep and prime lamb breeding property.
On its listing, Meares & Associates Sydney agent Chris Meares recalled Chisholm had been a very keen supporter of rural Australia.
“Sam always believed that every successful Australian should invest back into the rural sector,” he said.
The farm came with $30 million hopes. The sale comes as the worst of the drought is creeping south through NSW.
Mosman-based Kahlbetzer seems intent on creating a rural realm through his BridgeLane investment group, which provides investors with the promise of spotting emerging trends shaping the future of agriculture, property and technology.
BridgeLane currently owns some 80,000 hectares of cotton, soybean, cereal and corn country in Argentina. His father’s worldwide agribusiness success saw Twynam own more than 400,000ha at its peak, selling the final two major Australian properties last year.
Raised in Argentina and the US after his father began diversifying the family’s farming investments into South American farmland, Kahlbetzer has previously noted his international upbringing and corporate agricultural experience gave him a slightly different appreciation for the industry.
He recently told an international forum that he sees the advantages of scale, supply chain investment and the industry’s changing global opportunities.
HIGGINS DIVIDES WATERFRONT
Peter Higgins, who co-founded mortgage lending giant Mortgage Choice, has secured development approval to create nine luxury homes on his Avalon Beach estate, Marara.
The homes, on the vast 12,660sqm Cabarita Road waterfront, have been designed by local architect Mark Hurcum.
No doubt the gated community will be as classy as Mitala, the recently completed Hurcum-designed project round at Newport.
The homes will be priced from $5.5 million to $12.5 million, with Peter and wife Rebecca set to retain one.
Marara, translated to flying fish in Tahitian, was owned from 1930 by gynaecologist Sir Herbert Schlink, who died in 1962. His widow, gynaecologist Meg Mulvey, resided there until she died in 2001. The couple met in 1945, when Bertie was 62 and Meg 28.
The Careel Bay holding was sold to Higgins in 2003 for $15 million, with another block added costing $3.2 million.
KOGORAH KID’S BRICK HERITAGE
Kogarah neighbours recall a limousine dropping off Clive James whenever he visited the home of his late mother Minora.
The Kid from Kogarah’s father, machinist Albert, bought the building block for £199 in 1938, with a £810 mortgage from the Rural Bank.
In those days the street was mostly market gardens. Albert died in 1945 with the home retained until 2003 by his widow, whose executors secured $582,000 after her death.
The red-brick cottage was replaced by a cookie-cutter contemporary two-storey mansion in 2016.
Its demolition met with no uprising from Bayside Council in connection to heritage considerations. It sold at $2,175,000 two years ago.
Thongs were strewn at its front door yesterday, though they were not part of any social media hashtag homage following his death last Sunday. There were no floral wreaths out front, either.
James was, it seems, not quite the people’s poet.
BACK TO BUNDY
Former independent member for Wentworth Dr Kerryn Phelps and wife Jackie Stricker-Phelps pulled their Potts Point investment apartment from yesterday’s scheduled auction.
Located on Macleay St, the two-bedroom, two-bathroom Rex apartment with off-street parking has a $1.68 million asking price through Phillips Pantzer Donnelley agent Debbie Donnelley.
The couple, who paid $715,000 in 2008, have been on the lookout for a sea-change weekender after the $3.25 million sale of their Bowral retreat to Phillip Hunt and Georgia Gilkeson.
There has been whispers they have spent $3.25 million on a beachfront at Bundeena, which would mark a return as they sold their prior nearby beachfront in 2016 at $3.3 million.
