The Sell: Pete Evans buys Byron Bay hinterland tourist retreat
After quitting Sydney and moving to Byron Bay late last year, former celebrity chef Pete Evans has bought an 8ha tourist retreat in the hinterland.
NSW
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Former celebrity chef Pete Evans could potentially be making a move into the burgeoning Byron accommodation industry.
Evans, who quit Sydney for Byron Bay last year, has bought a hinterland tourism venture — the $100-a-night Mount Warning Forest Hideaway.
Evan’s company Healthy Everyday Pty Ltd has spent $1 million on the Byrrill Creek property, set about 66km northwest of Byron Bay township where he runs his recently opened healing clinic.
The recent accommodation acquisition is not far from the Pottsville retreat that Evans and wife Nicola Robinson have called home since moving from Sydney’s Malabar after their house sold for $3.36 million last September.
His whisper-quiet 8ha property acquisition comes with a three-bedroom home plus tourism venture, with eight self-contained studio apartments.
There’s a saltwater pool, which comes with a small macadamia plantation, along with crops of bush lemon and guava.
Plenty of fauna too, including glow-worms, echidnas and platypus, which were popular with its holiday-maker occupants.
It is not yet known what Evans’ intentions are, with Real Estate of Distinction Byron Bay selling agent Janis Perkins marketing the property as also having the potential of being a private home set in the rainforest valley with swimming holes and waterfalls.
“The eight units can simply be continued as-is or reimagined by the new owners,” her marketing suggested, adding the cabins did not provide mobile, internet or television reception, but rather an “authentic retreat from the distractions of modern life”.
There has been no application or alternative plans lodged yet with council.
Nearer to town, Denwol’s Phillip Wolanski, who already owns at Belongil, has spent $7,271,000 on a 3389 sqm beachside Suffolk Park site, combining residential and commercial zoning.
David Gordon, the selling agent at Ray White, marketed the nine beachside cottages as offering a strong income stream.
There had been a previous development approval for 15 units and six shops for the Clifford St holding.
There has also been the $24.7 million settlement of the big Wategos sale that will see the expansion of Raes on Wategos with a Little Nell Residences Aspen-style set-up by its owner, developer Antony Catalano.
The 4230sqm vacant building block is on Brownell Drive, so will see the typically booked out Raes bookend the dress circle location upon its completion.
TARA MOOTED IN CREMORNE BUY
Veteran 60 Minutes reporter Tara Brown has been house hunting, but on the other side of the harbour than her colleague Tom Steinfort.
The whisper is that Brown was the pre-auction buyer of the Cremorne cottage recently sold by Logie-award winning actor Jenni Baird and her film writer/director husband Michael Petroni.
No price reveal yet, but Cremorne’s four-bedroom median sits at $3.45 million, according to realestate.com.au, which notes that sales fell short of 40 over the past year, well down on the average 60 annual sales.
The house last traded just before its renovation in 2012 at $1.93 million when bought by Baird, who starred in A Place To Call Home, and Petroni, whose first film script Till Human Voices Wake Us won numerous awards.
It is a modernised 1900s Federation cottage featuring high, ornate ceilings, leadlight windows and fireplaces.
The four-bedroom home has a wraparound alfresco entertaining terrace and level gardens.
Petroni and Baird had secured approval for an upstairs retreat, but didn’t proceed before its recent listing through Belle Property Mosman agents David Smeallie and Stefon Bertram.
Brown joined 60 Minutes in 2001.
Meanwhile Tom Steinfort, who joined in 2018, was spotted with a bidding card when a $3.76 million Maroubra home, in need of more than a facelift, sold at a hotly contest auction last month with 50 buyer registrations.
Steinfort didn’t get a bid in on the Kyogle St listing as bidding opened at $3.2 million, some $650,000 over reserve, with a bid placed by the eventual buyer.
ROSE AND ROVE KEEP BRONTE MARKET ACTIVE
Television presenter Rose Kelly, known as Rose Jacobs when married to the former weatherman Steve Jacobs, has sold the Bronte apartment she bought after the pair split.
She has secured $1.8 million in quick time, some two weeks out from its scheduled pre-Easter auction.
Despite a renovation, its PPD agents Anthony Puntingam and David Tyrell had offered a guide of $1.55 million.
Kelly had extensively renovated the 80sqm space, which was marketed as a fusion of beachside appeal and New York-inspired design.
The two-level apartment now features painted black floorboards, a modern ornamental fireplace in the living area, and a brand-new bathroom with a stand-alone bath. A deck wraps around the lower level.
There are views to the ocean from its upper-level master bedroom.
The top-floor apartment is just one of nine in the upgraded block Anglesea.
Kelly had spent $1.56 million on the apartment following the sale of the Coogee matrimonial home for $4,612,000.
Meanwhile, celebrity couple Rove McManus and his wife Tasma Walton have sold their Bronte home, apparently for more than $14.5 million.
Corporate lawyer Tim Scanlan, from Kardos Scanlan, is the sole director of the company that has lodged a caveat on the Bronte title, without any revelation of the actual buyer’s identity.
The comedian and his wife are spending more time in their Perth home town, where they bought a $2 million house close to family and the beach last year.
The 1960s home on more than 1000sqm was bought from the businessman Tony Sage, the owner of the A-League side Perth Glory.
The pair, who grew up in beachside Geraldton, 420km north of Perth, married in 2009 at Broome.
McManus and Walton undertook a major renovation of the Bronte residence following their purchase for $6.415 million some five years ago.
Word of the couple’s sale arose after rumours that McManus and Walton will be downsizing to Coogee, having bought a deceased estate last Saturday for $3.76 million, competing against four other bidders.
The initial price guide had been a wayward $2.2 million for the single-level three-bedroom semi.
VICTORIAN TERRACE AT POTTS POINT FOR CANN
Businessman Joel Cann, the former boss of Blue Sky Alternative Investments, and his partner Jessica Elgood have quietly spent $5,995,000 on a grand double-fronted Victorian terrace in Potts Point. It was a record price for a terrace on the historic leafy strip.
The three-level Victoria St home, dating back to the 1880s, comes with interiors by Alexandria Kidd featured in Belle Magazine.
The six-bedroom home has a number of formal and informal living and dining spaces, plus a leafy rear courtyard backing onto the big strata complex.
There are major house renovations under way at four of its substantial terraces as the street sees off its backpackers, with COVID-19 spelling the end of their decades-long domination. The latest backpacker hostel offering fetched $11 million soon after its damp auction yesterday.
Auctioneer Damien Cooley declined an $8.1 million opening bid and, after bidding opened at $9.5 million, Cooley passed the three terraces in on a $12 million vendor bid.
Kanga House Backpackers, at 141, 141a and 143 Victoria Street, were offered through The Agency agent Bernadette Summers, who had been initially quoting $2.9 million for each. That edged higher to $3.2 million each as 10 contracts were issued.
Its finance industry buyer intends to convert the three 1890s terraces into his home.
Locals nominate the previous record holder, Hordern House, the wide-fronted villa bought by Emma van Haandel and Joel Williams for $5.75 million in 2016, as a benchmark for the street’s refurbishments, costing $5 million.
Attempts by local agent Jason Boon to secure a near $15 million sale failed following its refurbishment.
DAFFEY BUYS EPSTEIN TOWNHOUSE
It was expatriate investment banker Michael Daffey who was the $US51 million buyer of Jeffrey Epstein’s Upper East Side, New York, townhouse, for somewhat less than its $US88 million list price.
Billed as the recently retired Goldman Sachs executive, Daffey was a junior hiring in the late 1980s by veteran operative Steve Rawlinson at McIntosh Hamson Hoare Govett. Having grown up in New York, he was nicknamed The Yank by the other option dealers.
He resided in the Connaught on Sydney’s Liverpool St, renting from Bill Hayden, the then governor-general.
Melbourne-born Daffey, 54, joined Goldman in 1994 in Hong Kong from McIntosh.
He and wife Blake will offload their $29.5 million Nobo penthouse, the NY Post’s Gimme Shelter column reported, after renovating Epstein’s home both “spiritually and physically”.
Daffey was singled out for praise in the 2012 book of the disgruntled banker Greg Smith, Why I left Goldman Sachs when dubbed the bank’s “moral hero”.
He reportedly made a fortune on Bitcoin.
HEMMES’ SOUTH COAST FORAY
Billionaire hotelier Justin Hemmes, ranked 98th in Australia’s richest 250, seems set to expand his hospitality empire down south.
There have been sightings of Hemmes and his seaplane at Narooma on the NSW far south coast.
Of course, he’s long owned holiday retreats there, but the local whisper is that he’s been running the rule over popular over-water eatery The Quarterdeck.
The Riverside Drive venue has been a Tiki bar operated by Chris and Robyn Scroggy for the past two decades. When the duo bought the business it was operating as a fish and chip shop as well as a boat and a tackle shop. It had been originally an oyster growers’ shed.
With the deal still being considered, it’s too early to order Merivale’s signature wood-fired pizzas from the venue on Forsters Bay.
His big buy was the 60ha Glass House Rocks Estate for $7.5 million back in 2015.
The dynamic chief executive officer kicked off several acquisitions at Berrara where, in 2007, he spent $4.15 million on Halcyon, a historic beach house, long owned by Arbitration Commission president Sir Richard Kirby.
PATTON OFFLOADS SYDNEY HOME
Former GWS Giants star Jonathon Patton, who is now on the list at Hawthorn, has offloaded his Sydney investment townhouse.
He had to settle for $1.727 million in Alexandria, despite the agents quoting comparables around the $1.9 million mark when it was first listed.
Ray White agents Josh Kalocsay and Augusto Gerocarni secured the sale.
Patton (inset) had bought the stylish late 1990s designer, three-level home for $1.6 million in 2018.
The home has three bedrooms, including a master retreat which sits on the top level.
It became a rental when Patton moved to Melbourne to join the Hawks last year.
The star forward knocked the weekly asking rental price down from $1300 to $1100.
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