The Sell: Alan Jones to list Southern Highlands retreat Charlieville
Channel 7 host Larry Emdur and his wife Sylvie continue to tweak their property portfolio, listing their New York-style warehouse conversion in The Rocks for sale.
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The recent revelation by The Sell that Alan Jones had paid $12.25 million for a Gold Coast home was, it appears, the forerunner to another significant property move by the veteran broadcaster.
Jones has been vetting a shortlist of estate agents to market his Southern Highlands retreat, Charlieville, a 28ha estate at Fitzroy Falls this autumn.
Jones is an institution in the highlands, but it was only in 2003 when he paid $2.6 million for the property, with a four-bedroom house, two guest cottages, stables and a tennis court.
Charlieville, named after the Queensland-born Jones’s late father, has since been transformed into a splendid estate. The initial works were undertaken by Jim Sell of Quality Country Homes at a $500,000-plus cost.
It is understood Jones, who advised last week his Direct to the People broadcast will be back “shortly” after “a few little health problems”, will retain his apartment in Circular Quay’s Toaster building, which cost $10.5 million in 2017.
The Southport home acquisition was from Brett and Rebecca Frizelle, who had bought the main river home in 2013 for $4.2 million, and then undertook a two-year renovation under the guidance of architect Bayden Goddard.
The paperwork shows that Jones’s niece Tonia Taylor and her husband, tennis coach Justin Taylor, hold 12 per cent of the acquisition.
EDMURS LIST NYC-STYLED ROCKS APARTMENT
After a few weeks of off-market private appointment inspections, Channel 7 compere Larry Emdur and wife Sylvie have now put their redundant home in The Rocks officially up for sale. The New York-style warehouse conversion has a forthcoming auction.
The vast open layout is a creation of Tanner Kibble Denton Architects, fusing the original fabric of the building with a luxury New York feel, in a warehouse in Sydney’s Rocks precinct.
From its two-car garaging and private lift entry, the apartment has two bedrooms which have lavish open ensuites.
Their son Jye Emdur, of Team Thomas at Ray White TRG, has the listing, set on Gloucester St near the southern end of the Harbour Bridge.
The host of Seven’s The Chase Australia and co-host of The Morning Show is off to live in Darling Point, following the couple’s recent whole-floor 200sqm-plus apartment purchase from Naomi Penny, the widow of Professor Ron Penny, the pioneer of clinical immunology, who died in 2019.
The Rocks apartment was bought in 2017, after their Dover Heights clifftop home was bought by accountant Anthony Bell for a record-setting $11.5 million.
The warehouse, which cost $3.09 million, is in the conversion of a 1924 building that was once the Sydney depot for the Cadbury confectionary company, and more recently used as the Lawson Menzies auction house.
TKD made much of its exposed bricks in the project developed by Cumberland Development, backed by textile mogul Phil Bart.
Emdur, who has hosted Seven’s The Morning Show beside Kylie Gillies since 2007, has been on television screens since the 1980s when, at age 17, he became the youngest national newsreader, presenting the overnight news for Seven.
He switched to hosting game shows after presenting Good Morning Australia.
From 1993 he hosted The Price Is Right for five years, and returned to the show in 2003 and again in 2012.
Emdur, who grew up near the beach at Bondi, retains one longtime Bondi Beach unit.
The family nowadays spend most of their weekends at Berowra Waters, where their $1 million waterfront purchase made last June is getting a major renovation, not far from the retreat they’d bought previously.
It has prompted the listing of SkyRidge, their popular Kangaroo Valley Airbnb, a striking barn-style getaway built from shipping containers.
“SkyRidge is a social media star in it’s own right, and is one of the area’s most successful short-stay rental performers,” Jye’s marketing advises.
WHITLAMS HOOROO ‘ILLAWARRA RIVIERA’
Veteran merchant banker Nick Whitlam and wife Judy are trying again to sell their clifftop home on the Illawarra Coast.
The Scarborough home has been the couple’s base for a dozen years, having paid $950,000 for what was then a rundown shack about an hour south of Sydney.
They had architect Keith Cottier create the two-level weatherboard which adjoins the Royal National Park with Pacific Ocean panoramas from its Lawrence Hargrave Dr holding.
It has three bedrooms, one a master with walk-in and ensuite, plus two bathrooms, and a flowing living and dining space.
There are a number of outdoor breakout spaces to take advantage of the northeasterly views up the coast.
The Whitlams had previously owned property in Scarborough 20 years ago, and also briefly owned the historic Mount Kembla Hotel at Mount Keira.
Christie’s agents Ken Jacobs and James Hall have taken the listing from local agents, who failed to find a buyer last year.
They are hoping for a record-setting $6.5 million in the tightly held locality which has seen just five sales above $2 million in the past five years.
Buyer viewings on realestate.com.au sit at 2700, which is double the NSW average online listing viewings.
Whitlam has always called it “the Illawarra Riviera”.
The son of former prime minister Gough, Whitlam was the longtime chairman of Port Kembla Port Corporation during his time in the neighbourhood.
He once said he loved the physical sense of the escarpment and the beaches.
“They have champagne surf and the area is unpopulated and it has the railway line,” he said.
Having previously resided at Paddington, the Whitlams are whispered to have found an apartment, having been looking at off-the-plan and established apartments in Sydney’s east.
MARSHALLS ON THE MOVE
Retired NRL champion Benji Marshall and wife, TV presenter Zoe, secured a pre-auction buyer for their Concord family home ahead of Saturday’s scheduled auction.
Ben Horwood at Horwood Nolan secured the buyer mid-week at $2,815,000.
The 1940s home has been renovated, under the watchful eye of Zoe, who worked with Laura Stanton of Stanton Architects.
The couple had paid $1,535,000 in 2014, a year after the couple tied the knot in Byron Bay.
Zoe’s Instagram suggests the couple might have found their next home as she called out to her 60,000 plus followers for suggestions for furniture, wallpaper, lights, kitchen cabinets, bathroom vanities and even wardrobe builders.
Sounds like quite a project as the family are no doubt off to something a little bigger, given the arrival of their second child, Ever, sister to older brother, Fox.
Benji now has his own show on Fox Sports on Monday nights, having retired from playing at the end of the 2021 season.
SQUIRES OFFLOAD BONDI RESIDENCE
Fox Sports presenter Tony Squires and brand strategist wife Kate Pascoe Squires have sold their five-bedroom designer Bondi Junction home pre-auction.
The home, with 350sqm internal space, came with a $5 million guide, close to double Bondi Junction’s current $2.7 million median house price.
Bondi Junction has seen a compound growth rate of 8 per cent for houses over the past five years, according to realestate.com.au.
The four-level house, redesigned by architect Graham Ormsby more than a decade ago, last traded in 2011 at $2.6 million, when it was bought from art gallery owner Richard Martin. The home now comes with a landscaped courtyard created by Adam Robinson Design.
Squires was upgrading in 2011 from a three-bedroom Federation semi in Clovelly.
SELLERS’ CELLARS A VINTAGE SALE
The big auction next week that The Sell will be watching is the contents of the wine cellar of Cuccia Noya, St Jean Cap Ferrat on the French Riviera.
The Bonhams Paris auction follows the sale of the home by the Double Bay-based businessman and philanthropist Basil Sellers and his wife, Clare.
Their alluring trophy home cost around $17.5 million in 1993 when they bought it from the late business tycoon John Elliott.
The home, set above popular Paloma Beach, had been quietly listed around three years ago, having been offered in 2009 at $130 million.
Sellers loves his wine. The collection traces the odyssey from the Reynella Vintage Reserve 1963, which Sellers first tasted in his home city of Adelaide; to the wines of the Hunter Valley after his move to Sydney; and onto Europe when a bottle of Château Beychevelle sparked his interest in Bordeaux.
The 316 lots include the legendary 1947 Château Cheval Blanc. Magnums of Château Mouton Rothschild 1959 have €6000 estimates.
Cuccia Noya’s recently settled sale price and new owner are unknown, but hopefully it was not a Russian oligarch.
The last big sale in the village was in 2019, when $320 million was secured by the Italian distiller Davide Campari-Milano when Villa Les Cedres sold to mining tycoon Rinat Akhmetov, Ukraine’s richest man, who recently told Forbes he was helping the army’s “territorial defence to stop the military aggression”.
Cuccia Noya, the six-bedroom villa on 1500sqm, is located on Chemin de Saint-Hospice, which has regularly been ranked in the world’s 10 priciest streets, given its location on the Mediterranean.
TILLEY SCORES A FLIPPING WINDFALL
Socialite Tiffany Tilley has returned to the eastern suburbs, after a windfall result for her Avalon Beach property.
She has bought in Woollahra through PPD, paying $3.22 million for a two-bedroom, two-bathroom freestanding terrace not far from Queen St, which sold at $2.6 million in 2017.
Tilley scored a flipping windfall at Avalon Beach last year after she gave a four-bedroom residence a makeover in the 18 months she owned it, having paid $3.06 million.
Tilley secured $4.5 million through Christie’s International agents Shane Clinton and Ken Jacobs.
The sale made up for the $300,000 loss Tilley took in Paddington in May 2020, as the pandemic hit market sentiment, when she sold for $3.9 million, having paid $4.2 million in 2018.
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