The Sell: Samantha Armytage buys Moss Vale property to renovate
Former Sunrise co-host Samantha Armytage has snapped up a renovation project at Moss Vale, while Atlassian billionaire Mike Cannon-Brookes continues his Southern Highlands buy-up.
NSW
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Southern Highlands-based former Sunrise co-host Samantha Armytage has snapped up a renovation project at Moss Vale.
The $1.3m acquisition secured a 1960s home with 1990s timber kitchen. It had been in the Laurie family since 1962.
The expansive 1922sqm block, not far off the Argyle St retail strip, has a single-level home with three bedrooms and two bathrooms.
It was marketed through Belle Property agents Debbie Pearce and Tobie Mason as “exuding timeless character with its timber cladding, perfectly nestled amid a lush mature garden — each room is filled with potential, offering the canvas for your personal touch and modern updates while retaining the home’s nostalgic allure”, when listed for recent online auction.
PropTrack puts the three-bedroom Moss Vale median house price at $825,000, up 1.2 per cent over the past year after 55 sales.
It is just a 12-minute drive to the Berrima farm Armytage shares with husband Richard Lavender. They married in late 2020.
It was 2020 when Armytage, who hosts The Farmer Wants A Wife, sold her $3.1m Burrawang weekender, in a deal well up on her $2.2m purchase price from three years earlier.
Armytage also sold her North Bondi home for $3.15m, just a month after her engagement to the equestrian businessman, and bought an investment apartment costing $1,575,000 at Rushcutters Bay in 2021.
She is yet to sell her NSW South Coast holiday retreat, as the much publicised Hyams Beach village struggles with land tax bills, shark sightings and holiday traffic gridlock.
She has so far maintained a $3.2m price guide for the three-bedroom, two-bathroom holiday rental offering which secures up to $1200 a night.
She renovated the property after buying for $1.765m in 2018.
ANOTHER SOUTHERN HIGHLANDS BUY FOR CANNON-BROOKES
Atlassian billionaire Mike Cannon-Brookes has continued his extraordinary buy-up in the Southern Highlands, with three further purchases in Mittagong.
The latest $12.25 million move secured 4.3ha on Reservoir St. Two of the homes need repairs.
His adjoining 9.8ha Greyladyes Farm on the north-facing side of Mount Gibraltar was bought from developer Andrew Richardson in 2022 for $13 million. He added the 14ha Tintagel for $9.1 million last year.
REBEL’S HISTORY IN BRICKS AND MORTAR
No pressing need for an update to her Rebel Rising memoir, but Rebel Wilson’s grandparents have sold their longtime Cherrybrook home.
It fetched $2.31m mid-week through McGrath Castle Hill agent Mark Vinogradov.
“They are downsizing,” The Sell was advised after spotting the listing on realestate.com.au last month and then being asked to await its sale to curtail stickybeaks going through the open for inspections.
The four-bedroom, two-bathroom house had traded in 2001 at $490,000 when bought by Wilson’s maternal grandparents, Robert and Betty Stopford.
The Stopford family get its first mention on page 18 in the recently released book, with Wilson particularly proud of her great-great-grandfather Dr Robert Stopford, who held the state seat of Balmain as a politician for three years from 1922.
The Lancashire-born doctor had arrived in Sydney in 1911 via Auckland, and for eight years ran a clinic for slum children at Balmain.
The Hollywood actor publishes plenty of insights into her family property moves in the HarpersCollins book. She details their Balmain home circumstances around the time of her premature birth in March 1980.
She writes her parents, teacher Sue and bank officer Warwick, had bought for $52,000 in 1978.
Land title searches show the couple had come from Denistone to buy on Montague St from an iron worker called Richard Carter.
But they sold up for $95,000 in September 1980 after a crisis. The reason for their quick relocation from the now restored and recently sold ornate $3.35m 1892 home were concerns about the walls having peeling paint that contained lead. It had killed their beagle.
Making their way to The Hills district, the couple bought for $95,000 on Cecil Ave, Castle Hill, which was to be their home for the next five years.
Its perhaps no surprise the nostalgic Wilson has owned extensive property on the Balmain peninsula, including an apartment on the site of a 19th-century soap factory which cost $1.88m in 2015.
The two-bedroom, two-level Custance Architects-designed space adjoins the heritage-listed Federation-style factory previously the site of Sunlight soap production.
AUTHOR COUPLE BUY IN BANGALOW
The trend of shivering Melburnians outbidding Sydney and Brisbane buyers for Byron Bay holiday homes remains prevalent.
The latest buyer is podcaster and best-selling author Hugh Van Cuylenburg, from inner northeast Melbourne, who calls Alphington home with wife and fellow author Penny Moodie and their three children.
The founder of The Resilience Project has emerged as an $8m hinterland buyer at Bangalow.
Set around 13km inland from Byron Bay, it’s the third-biggest sale the locale has recorded, behind only the $8.6m paid by former Graintree boss Ron Greentree and wife Jennifer for Cedar Grove Estate in 2022, and the record $11m that philanthropist Tanya Carnegie spent on Hillstone Farm in 2020.
Van Cuylenburg’s acquisition, Byron Creek Estate from the Grofski family, is considerably smaller than the others at just over 6000sqm.
The homestead is a 1905 original cottage that DFJ Architects restored and added a contemporary extension. It was once home to Bangalow township’s pioneering founder Thomas Robinson and his wife Charlotte.
Still behind a classic facade, the home now has five bedrooms and two living areas across two levels. The living area opens to a covered timber entertaining deck.
Within the grounds is a new industrially-designed studio with two bedrooms, and a two-car garage/workshop, as well as another workshop.
BANKING ON $8M FOR STUNNING PENTHOUSE
Former Macquarie and Credit Suisse banker Edward Jewell-Tait and his wife Jo have officially listed their penthouse in the Palomar apartment development in Bellevue Hill.
Michael Pallier of Sydney Sotheby’s International had previously had the off-market listing of the three-bedroom, three-bathroom offering in the remodelled 1928 Spanish mission complex.
It came with initial $9m hopes, which have now been revised down to $8m for its June 1 auction.
Its open-plan living space comes with oak herringbone floors, bespoke cabinetry and a gas fireplace.
There is an 18m-long entertaining terrace, with undercover living and dining, outdoor heating and separate bar and barbecue area with harbour views towards Rose Bay.
The Drumalbyn Rd penthouse cost $5.8m in an off-the-plan deal in 2019.
The couple, who intend spending more time back in Perth, sold their nearby Cranbrook Rd house in 2020 for $7.9m.
It was 1997 when a permanent move back to Perth was first trialled, after Jewell-Tait married Joanna Clements, whose family were running Cape Lodge near the Margaret River in Western Australia.
Long a fixture on the Sydney philanthropic and social scene, Jewell-Tait had been at Macquarie from 1980, then becoming chairman of its operations in WA.
He next headed to the Commonwealth Bank, then was briefly at Caledonia Investments before joining Credit Suisse as its head of private banking for Australia from 2011 until 2015.
Palomar caught the attention of the NSW Building Commission following its 2023 completion.
The listing of Palomar’s ground floor apartment, owned by Fishbowl CEO Nathan Dalah and his model wife Georgia Fowler, got caught up in the headwinds when listed late last year after the issuance of a building work rectification order concerning inadequate fireproofing and waterproofing in the building.
$10.7M FOR PROPERTY IN AWARD HUNT
The newly built Anthony Gill Architects designed property on Glenayr Ave, North Bondi, has been sold by home builder Bill Clifton and his wife Kate.
It fetched $10.7m through PPD agents Alexander Phillips and Vince Licata.
It was built with brick masonry and corrugated translucent fibreglass privacy screens by Robert Plumb Build on its 417sq m Glenayr Ave holding after its 2020 purchase for $3.44m.
It was marketed as a private wellness sanctuary amid landscaping by Dangar Barin Smith that includes a rooftop garden.
The sliding and pivot doors are by Vitrocsa. There are polished concrete floors and 3.5m ceilings.
There are interiors by Daily Interiors in the freestanding two-storey home.
The Waverley Council cost of works was given as $2,193,000.
The property has been shortlisted among 35 others for the upcoming 2024 AIA NSW Architecture Awards.
The beach house certainly promotes sustainability with a 19.6kW solar power system, double- glazed windows, whole-house water filtration system, hydronic floor heating, zoned airconditioning and an EV charger in the double garage, although there is a PITT gas cooktop.
The Robert Plumb enterprise was established in 2011 by the Cliftons.
NEW TEAM AT COACH HOUSE
The heritage-listed 1860s coach house of Gladswood, Double Bay, has been sold by Pauline Goodyer at Goodyer Real Estate and Sotheby’s agent Michael Pallier.
No price disclosure yet, but the 978sq m harbourfront property last traded in 1983 for $782,000 having been built for pastoralist Samuel Gordon.
“We look forward to seeing its transformation in the hands of the new owner,” Goodyer said.
DUO’S BEACH RUN IS ENDING
Filmmaker Leah Churchill-Brown and husband Tom have listed in Palm Beach.
High Tide, built in a P&O style with portholes, was bought from John Marshall in 1995 for $360,000 and then updated by architect Michael Muir.
The Surf Rd home with bushland views over Pittwater carries $3.9 million hopes through Ray White Prestige Palm Beach agents Noel Nicholson and Tara Jaijee.
Got a property news tip? Email jonathan.chancellor@news.com.au
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