The Sell: The Bachelor’s Abbie Chatfield buys in Byron hinterland
Sexual wellness exponent and social media influencer Abbie Chatfield has paid $1.45 million for a quaint timber cottage in the Byron Bay hinterland.
NSW
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Abbie Chatfield, The Bachelor star-turned-influencer, has bought in the Byron Bay hinterland.
The 26-year old sexual wellness exponent, who made her name as runner-up on the Matt Agnew series in 2019, is the latest buyer at Bangalow.
The Bondi-based, pro-vaccine advocate has spent $1.45 million on a quaint, recently built, timber cottage just outside the village.
Her wealth has come from her social media influencing success, having built a Generation Z-fuelled feminist empire with 330,000-plus followers on Instagram.
Apparently there’s only one thing the 26-year-old won’t share with her audience, and that’s who she dates.
“I don’t ever talk about who I’m dating – ever,” Chatfield told Stellar On Friday.
Her purchase was marketed as “a romantic timber cottage”, with a twist of rustic and modern flair by its Elders selling agent Michael Dodds.
It was built last year, shortly after the sloping 800sqm building block sold for $315,000 to builder Casey Pearman and wife Sara.
Apparently the house was known as La Casa Black and was inspired by the couple’s love of California.
Built using recycled natural materials, the private retreat has two bedrooms, one in a separate studio with its own private access.
The home, with white-washed floors, features a home office. The marketing advised there could be a second level built subject to council permission.
It comes with 71sqm internal space plus 36sqm decking.
Chatfield snapped it up within two weeks of its listing, when it was heading to auction with a $1.35 million to $1.45 million guide.
Hatfield told Stellar she is single and, after months in Sydney’s lockdown, more than ready to mingle.
CoreLogic put the number of properties sold at Bangalow over the past year at 60, with prices starting from $885,000.
Of these, 10 were sold at $2 million or higher, with the top sale in the town secured at $3.5 million in July on Rifle Range Rd.
It was Asmara, the restored 1905 Federation farmhouse on its battle-axe 1600sqm holding.
It was purchased in 2019 at $1.32 million by the self-described serial renovator Jessica Bowen, and had been listed in June through First National agent Denzil Lloyd with a $3.5 million to $3.85 million price guide.
Bangalow’s most expensive acreage sale sits at $11 million, when Tanya Carnegie bought her 24ha estate in September last year.
HUGE INTEREST FOR TV DUO’S UNIT
Former Channel 9 boss David Gyngell and his TV presenter wife Leila McKinnon have listed their art deco Bondi Beach investment apartment.
There was a queue out front before Saturday’s first open for inspection, with close to 30 getting through its abbreviated viewing.
Set in a revamped block of seven apartments, the three-bedroom unit comes with a $2.25 million price guide.
The light-filled apartment with lock-up garage seems unlikely to get to its R&W November 18 auction, given the high level of interest.
It was bought at 2017 auction for $1.675 million after 14 contracts has been issued through Ric Serrao at Raine & Horne.
Serrao noted at the time that apartments of its 114sqm size were rare compared to the 70sqm norm.
The Ramsgate Ave first-floor apartment was leased, following its stylish renovation by Gyngell’s interior stylist Briony Fitzgerald, at around $1450 a week.
The Byron Bay hinterland couple had a Dover Heights home, which they sold for $8.4 million when they downsized their Sydney bolthole to an art deco Bellevue Hill apartment that cost $4.5 million last December.
Gyngell, the son of late Channel 9 boss Bruce Gyngell, has links to Bondi back to the late 1980s selling beachwear and surfing equipment.
MOSS ON MOVE FROM BLACKHEATH
The Blue Mountains abode of best-selling author Tara Moss and her writer husband Berndt Sellheim has been sold for $1.85 million.
The couple made their tree change to Blackheath two years before daughter Sapphira was born. Moss had married poet and philosophy professor Sellheim in 2009, the same year Canyon Cottage, set on 1.2ha, cost $585,000.
The four-bedroom 2000-built home that took just 16 days to sell this month comes with something of a baronial room with bar under a high coffered ceiling. There are French doors opening to a north facing terrace, and the room is used as a home cinema and dining room.
The kitchen was described as modest but with top-of-the-range Smeg appliances. Facing north, it catches the light all winter long, Richardson & Wrench selling agent Lewis Thyer noted, and has two gas furnaces for its under floor heating system.
There is also a copper drenching system that covers the whole house, fed by a large dam and pump.
Moss, who was born in Canada, has written 13 best-selling fiction and nonfiction books.
Her debut novel, Fetish, written when she was 23, was published in 1999. She’d been a model at age 14 and moved to Australia in 1996.
Blackheath’s median house price sits at $727,000, according to realestate.com.au.
BROOKES LIST DURAL HOME
Veteran retailer Bernie Brookes, the former boss of Myer, is selling his long-held Dural acreage.
He’s named the 2ha estate Brook, not after himself but in reference to the small water stream he installed at a $300,000 cost.
Brookes and his wife Susie, paid $2,262,000 in 2010, and the following year constructed a vast Denton Homes master-built set of houses, interconnected by an eight car garage.
Architect Russell Scott designed the homes, which have 10 bedrooms in total.
There are two gyms, and two home offices, one with a wall of newspaper cartoons and photographs from Brookes’ time at the top of the retail department store.
He had worked his way up at Woolworths for 29 years, before he headed Myer from 2006 until 2014.
The houses on Haven Pl sit in gardens by Rolling Stone Landscapes, with the 2ha featuring a championship sized tennis court, a pool, and an outdoor entertaining area with a bar.
Brookes moved to the dress circle Hills district neighbourhood in 2010, and then lodged four development applications for the works.
Lumby Hampson Dural agents Kate Lumby and Will Hampson expect they will secure around $10.85 million, Dural’s current record price, at its November 27 auction.
The record dates back to 2018 when the billionaire Zhang-Zhou family, whose matriarch is China’s wealthiest self-made woman, bought their 2ha holding after Foreign Investment Review Board approval.
Dural has 30 properties currently for sale.
Its median house price sits at $2,061,000, and, based on five years of sales, Dural has seen 8 per cent compound growth rate for houses.
QUICK SALE FOR WATERLOO UNIT
Clarissa Weerasena, the wife of former My Kitchen Rules judge Manu Feildel, has sold a Waterloo investment ahead of its scheduled November 3 auction.
Its sale price was undisclosed, but underbidders were told to better $1.06 million.
It is in the 135-apartment George St warehouse style complex George & Allen.
The apartment’s industrial-chic aesthetic included raw concrete ceilings and wide-board timber floors, bold black feature accents, and full-height glass stacker doors opening to an entertainers’ terrace.
The complex was designed in 2013 by Turner Studio architectural design, with interiors by Hecker Guthrie. The complex secured a gold medal in the Interior Design Excellence Awards.
The jewellery designer secured the two-bedroom investment apartment in 2013 at $632,000.
The couple have lived in Maroubra since paying $1.9 million in 2015.
The couple run La Botanique, a multifunctional warehouse space hired out as a kitchen for filming and functions.
PAGENTS BUY LECKIES’ OLD HOME
The Pagent family took ownership of their Woollahra home midweek.
It followed their purchase from Skye Leckie, the widow of the late legendary former television boss David Leckie.
There was a $17 million sale advisory with the midweek paperwork settlement.
The Leckies had sold the house on the quiet in May, with David dying in July.
The deal was apparently negotiated by PPD’s Alexander Phillips, who got in under the guard of local rival agent Ben Collier.
Maryanne Pagent, wife of Ian Pagent, who sold recently in Cremorne Point for $16 million, had secured occupancy of the Holdsworth St property under licence some weeks ago.
Woollahra has seen its record set twice in this year, first in August at $23 million for TV personality Kerrie-Anne Kennerley’s home, on extended settlement terms.
Then the 3000sqm Rosemont heritage estate was sold in September for close to $45 million by the Burrell family to chief executive of Balmain Group Andrew Griffin and his wife Yelena Alpatova.
Apparently KAK’s 892sqm home had been on the Pagents’ radar too, as it had a better backyard than the Leckies’ 465sqm holding.
JOCKEY BACKS A WINNER
Champion jockey James McDonald has sold his Randwick sub-penthouse.
The deal was done last weekend, just as Nature Strip held on to his lead down the Royal Randwick straight in the $15 million The TAB Everest.
The pre-auction sale was secured by Mark McPherson and Leyla Gulasi at McGrath Estate Agents who were telling buyers there were $2.25 million hopes.
McDonald achieved a career ambition with his Everest win, after his 55 Group 1 wins so far.
The three-bedroom, three-bathroom apartment cost $1.16 million in 2012.
No word yet where McDonald and his partner Katelyn Mallyon, the Australian Turf Club Racing Ambassador, are off to next.
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