The Sell: Kyle Sandilands selling tropical retreat to be closer to Sydney — and further from crocs
Radio king Kyle Sandilands and wife Tegan are selling their under-used Port Douglas hideaway, with a desire to find a coastal retreat closer to Sydney.
NSW
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National breakfast radio king Kyle Sandilands and wife Tegan are selling their under-used Port Douglas, Queensland, hideaway, with a desire to find a coastal retreat closer to Sydney.
Sandilands told his KIIS FM listeners they were set to list their retreat in Mowbray, which they have owned for four years.
The $2.9m listing went live on Friday through the top selling agent Barbara Woolveridge at Sotheby’s International Tropical North Queensland.
Sandilands told The Sell the property had been “absolutely perfect for us”, when it was just him and Tegan: “It’s private, and tropical, and overlooks the water.”
However, the location became a little problematic after the arrival of their son Otto in 2022.
“Our two-year-old son Otto loves the beach, which can be difficult to go to around Port Douglas due to the crocodiles. We’re going to relocate somewhere a bit closer to Sydney where we don’t have to worry about hungry reptiles,” he said.
The three-bedroom home on 1.04ha, just 12km south of Port Douglas, was bought during the pandemic in late 2020.
The couple then furnished it with imported one-off pieces bought at Bill Richardson’s Cairns homewares shop Bungalow Life.
The year 2000-built retreat sits at the highest point of the holding surrounded by tropical rainforest. It captures views from the entertaining deck, which has a blue-tiled wet edge pool and pizza oven.
There are around 200 properties in Mowbray with sales hitting $2.8m in 2021, according to PropTrack.
Sandilands, who has occasionally broadcast his radio show from the retreat, told his listeners last year that he had once argued with Tegan over his desire to buy a $2.5m island in the Whitsundays, before she’d shut him down.
The Vaucluse-based Sandilands and his longtime broadcasting co-presenter Jackie “O” Henderson ranked 72nd, up four spots, on The Daily Telegraph’s Sydney Power 100 list, which was released last week.
They signed a 10-year deal last November with KIIS parent company, ARN, said to be worth $200m.
NAT’S HARD TO LEASE HOME TO BE OFFLOADED
Actor and singer Natalie Bassingthwaighte and her estranged husband, musician Cameron McGlinchey, are selling their former home in the Byron Bay hinterland.
It comes with five bedrooms across two single-level buildings around a pool in 4760sq m semirural grounds at Ewingsdale.
The couple had moved in after selling in Melbourne’s Brighton for $4m during the early stages of the pandemic in 2020. They paid $2.15m for a modernised 1985-built home on the Byron Bay hinterland site.
Bassingthwaighte soon painted the five-bedroom home white. The kitchen has had a refurbishment. The alfresco dining area, plus the pool and deck, have been improved.
First National Byron agents Su Reynolds and Renee Schofield have the listing with a $3m to $3.25m guide.
The Plantation Drive listing comes a year after Bassingthwaighte and McGlinchey announced they had split after 13 years. They had been bandmates in the band Rogue Traders before marrying in 2011.
The home was up for lease earlier this year, when they initially sought $2850 a week, which was reduced to $2500 before it came down from rental sites.
PropTrack calculates the Ewingsdale market has been weakening, down 23 per cent to a $2,539,500 median price from 11 sales over the past year.
Bassingthwaighte recently posted a teaser of a new film she’s starring in, Take My Hand, which has been written and directed by John Raftopoulos, with Claire Jensz as its executive producer.
The film industry couple are also in the Byron hinterland, having sold their Wategos trophy home for $17,125,000 to Boost Juice co-founder Janine Allis, and then spending $7,825,000 on Alfred Lodge, an 18ha Coopers Shoot farm.
BLOGGER’S SUN-KISSED SOJOURN PART OF AUSSIE FRENCH CONNECTION
Cookery blogger Stephanie Conley-Buhre and her entrepreneurial husband Oscar Buhre are among the many sun-kissed Sydneysiders arriving back after spending the summer in France, amid its Olympics fervour.
The Bellevue Hill-based Conley-Buhre is an owner of a villa in the south of France town Beaulieu-Sur-Mer.
The hillside Villa Madelon, sans any Mediterranean Sea view, was an incomplete Belle Epoque beauty in the making before her makeover.
The family were spotted dining at the popular eatery the African Queen at the marina.
The seaside town has long been popular with the Sydney gumnut brigade as for many years it was where the late cricket commentator Richie Benaud and his wife Daphne maintained an apartment.
Noted arts patron Odetta Medich, the former wife of convicted murderer Ron Medich, initially left the misery of her Point Piper harbourfront for a garden apartment in the four-storey 1900 Royal Residence complex which had been bought in 2008 by the couple.
It was featured in the prestigious The World Of Interiors magazine in 2016 under the headline “Chameleon on the Cote d’Azur: The French Salon that turns into a New York loft”.
The apartment, with its pointe de hongrie oak parquet flooring and distinctive external gargoyles, is just a short distance from both Villa Madelon and Benaud’s bolthole.
Set on the busy road midway between Monte Carlo and Nice, it was the work of expatriate architect Carl Pickering of Lazzarini Pickering.
No lights on during The Sell’s recent breeze through the Riviera, but her name still appears on the intercom, although she is apparently spending more time these days in the Bahamas.
Carol Braddock and her insurance businessman husband Stephen Klinkert have a Beaulieu-Sur-Mer place too.
The Queensland family also own the Dalwood estate in northern NSW.
$15.5M FOR HOME OF EUTHANASIA CHAMPION
The Bellevue Hill deceased estate of antiques dealer Angelika Elliott, an Austrian baroness whose late husband, Dr John Elliott, championed euthanasia laws, has been sold.
Despite no price disclosure on listing websites, it fetched $15.59m at its public mid-week auction.
The five-bedroom, three-bathroom Salisbury Rd property, with a porte-cochere, had been listed with $12m guidance. Set on a level 777sq m block, the residence was built after the couple purchased a pair of semis in 1988 for $1.05m and then commissioned architects Bensen, Mezzapica & Perrie to design the French provincial-style home.
John Elliott, suffering bone marrow cancer, chose to go to Switzerland to die in 2007.
His documented journey contributed to the change in laws in Australia.
With a 34-day median time on market, the Bellevue Hill price median sits at $9.75m, according to PropTrack; this is up by 9.6 per cent after 85 sales over the past year.
Meanwhile, the longtime home of solicitor Judy Swan has been listed for September 18, having failed to find its buyer during its extended offering off-market.
The five-bedroom Victoria Rd house on 753sq m, last traded in 2001 when bought for $4.45m from the Tilley clan.
The local comparables have been advised as the nearby home of Colin Richardson, the Moelis & Company director, which sold in June for $21m after 21 days on market.
GAI’S ABODE SHOULD DRAW STRONG FIELD
The two-bedroom, one-bathroom Point Piper apartment of long-time investor and racing great Gai Waterhouse has been listed for a September 3 auction with $2m hopes.
It last traded when it was bought by her late father, Tommy “T.J.” Smith, and mother, Valerie, on her return to Sydney from London in 1977.
“Step into the world of Gai”, its quaint marketing pitch suggests, accompanied by a large portrait of the racing queen painted by Anh Do.
Waterhouse quit the apartment after marrying bookie Robbie Waterhouse in December 1980.
The first floor Wentworth St abode, last listed as a rental at $890 a week early last year, has been refurbished.
It has harbour views from the living room, balcony and main bedroom.
Meanwhile, a nearby apartment offering on Wyuna Rd has adopted a more modern sales approach, using generative AI-powered decor design in its marketing.
Philanthropist Judy Joye, another grande dame investor on the Point Piper peninsula, has listed her long-time nest egg with $1.8m guidance.
The two-bedroom, one-bathroom Alvington offering goes to September 7 auction through Augusto Gerocarni at Ray White.
The vacant, newly updated, northeast facing apartment – with harbour glimpses from two angles – features bay windows amid its character charm.
VENDOR WAITS ON TRUNK CALL
Dr Philippa Harvey-Sutton, the vendor of the Rockleigh, Point Piper trophy home, is battling a tree dispute in the NSW Land and Environment Court initiated by rag trader neighbour Sara Cooper.
There will be an on-site hearing next month at the 1284sq m Wolseley Rd property, which ranks as the year’s top sale at a yet to settle $85 million.
Arborists Peter Castor and Greg Tesoriero will represent the respective neighbours.
PROPERTY ACT STILL PLAYS OUT
There is confirmation at the NSW land titles office of an ongoing Northern Rivers ownership by actors Simon Baker and Rebecca Rigg, who split in 2021.
The couple, who met in 1991, have gone their separate ways on the property front – except for Lornsmere, a cottage on 7ha at Nashua.
They paid $1.5 million in 2010 with the purchase fronted, until recently, by Nicholas Layton and Steven Burns.
GO RENTING IN A BLAZE OF GLORY
Shaynna Blaze, The Block cast member, is seeking a tenant for her two-bedroom, two-bathroom Melbourne investment property.
The Hawthorn East townhouse is a $2500 a week executive-style offering through McGrath agent Joanne Pearson. It includes a supplied fortnightly clean.
The two-level space with 108sq m of decking boasts a Versailles-inspired bathroom.
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