The Sell: Nicole Kidman and Keith Urban look to build gatehouse at Bunya Hill
Nicole Kidman and Keith Urban have approval to build a security gatehouse at their Southern Highlands estate, but will the superstars have their traditional Easter holiday there this year?
Property
Don't miss out on the headlines from Property. Followed categories will be added to My News.
Actor Nicole Kidman and singer husband Keith Urban have approval for a gatehouse at their Bunya Hill, Sutton Forest, estate.
But, with no sign of any construction, locals are guessing the family’s traditional Easter holiday in the NSW Southern Highlands might not be on this year.
The works have been costed at $32,450, so their security will not be in much splendour.
The gatehouse application stemmed from the “property owners’ need to have security guards on the premises when they’re at home”.
It seems the couple arrange for the hire of a portable structure which is towed onto the property and set up at the entry gates along with a portable WC facility for the security guards.
“This is a detraction from the heritage property’s elegance and not in keeping with the owners’ expectations for the long-term appearance of the site,” the application approved by Wingecarribee Council says.
The proposed heritage character design will “feel as though it was part of the original entry gates”.
Brett Goff Building Design & Drafting lodged the paperwork.
There have been other small projects on the 44ha Bunya Hill, which was bought in 2008 for $6.5m from Peter Coad, the then head of global markets at National Australia Bank, and his wife, Helen, through Drew Lindsay in conjunction with Martin Schiller.
Bunya Hill is an 1878 Georgian mansion with wide sandstone verandas, pressed-metal ceilings, 10 marble fireplaces, and a carved cedar staircase.
It had previously been known as Mount Valdimah, named after Denmark’s King Valdemar the Great, and also Shrublands.
Kidman has often donned gumboots and gardening gloves over Easter, although, if she does this year, it will be quickly back to the United States, where she is producing a movie for Amazon titled Holland, Michigan, and starring alongside Succession’s Matthew Macfadyen.
The film, described as a darkly humorous Fargo-esque thriller set in Holland during Tulip Time, is about a school teacher who suspects her husband may be a serial killer.
The bulk of the film is being shot in Nashville, Tennessee, where the celebrity couple reside, but also at Michigan’s Windmill Island Gardens, home to de Zwaan windmill, the last mill transported from the Netherlands.
The location has had a tulip time in May since its first crop of 100,000 tulips in 1929.
Of course the NSW Southern Highlands, which comes alive at Easter, has its own Tulip Time, in September, with the Ada Corbett Gardens mass-planted with 75,000 tulips in a spectacular springtime display.
There are another 30,000 tulips planted across the shire, creating a picturesque vista which has been going since 1911.
CRICKET PAIR TAKE BLOCK AT SEAFORTH
Sports reporter Roz Kelly and her husband, former South African cricketer Morne Morkel, have bought their first home.
They have secured a $3.3m family home in Seaforth.
The couple, and their two children, arrived back in Australia from South Africa in 2019.
Morkel will not incur the 8 per cent foreign buyer stamp duty charge, having become a permanent resident of Australia in 2020.
They snapped the home up soon before its scheduled auction through Cunninghams Property’s James Haywood and Kelly Santos.
The renovated 1950s-built home, across one level, has four bedrooms, including a master with ensuite and built-in desk.
The rear yard features a saltwater pool and a timber cubby house on a lawn.
The home last traded for $2.2m in 2015, when it was bought well above the $1.7m auction guide.
Prices in Seaforth have dropped about 10 per cent over the past year, according to realestate.com.au, which puts the median house price at $3.36m.
Kelly, who was born in Mackay, Queensland, met Morkel, during South Africa’s tour of Australia in 2012.
Morkel proposed in Dubai a year later, and they wed in 2014.
Soon after they moved to South Africa while Morkel continued to play all forms of cricket for South Africa.
Kelly co-hosted the Big Bash League with retired cricketer Adam Gilchrist when it was on Channel 10. Morkel played in the competition, for the Perth Scorchers and then the Brisbane Heat.
TITANS RECRUIT FORAN SETTLES INTO GLITTER STRIP
NRL Titans recruit Kieran Foran and wife Karina have bought on the Gold Coast.
They spent $1.735m on a 2015-built near-beachside duplex at Miami before his debut for the club.
It has 219sq m internal space, including four upstairs bedrooms plus study, which will be handy since they have eight children between them from their previous marriages.
The neighbouring duplex fetched $1.836m late last year.
The halfback has signed a two-year deal reportedly worth $400,000 a season.
The couple had been househunting along the southern end of the glitter strip since January, seeking a Sydney northern beaches vibe. The home has a tropical garden with a brick pizza oven and surfboard storage shed.
Foran debuted with Manly in 2009, then went on to play at the Eels, the Warriors and the Bulldogs. He returned to the Sea Eagles in 2020.
Karina Ormsby, who had been a Central Coast fitness instructor and hairdresser, emerged as Foran’s love interest in 2017.
Foran sold the family home at Freshwater for $3.055m, as well as a $700,000 Dee Why investment apartment, and then spent $1.7m on a St Ives family home, with Ormsby
The couple secured $1.75m for the four-bedroom home in 2020, and then the couple sold their Central Coast weekender investment in 2021 for $1m, having been bought in 2018 at $775,000.
SUN SETS ON HILL STAY
Channel 7 Sunrise presenter Edwina Bartholomew and partner Neil Varcoe have sold in Dulwich Hill after six years’ ownership.
Their renovated 1870s brick house, which came with initial cautious $2 million hopes, found its buyer a week before its scheduled March 18 BresicWhitney auction.
Price guidance had been raised to $2.1 million during its 18 days on the market.
The couple, now parents to two children, had paid $1.59 million in 2017, with Bartholomew’s childhood friend Felicity Slattery from the interior design firm Studio Esteta commissioned to undertake its extensive makeover.
The tree change couple want to expand their tourism business, which runs out of their farm at Glen Alice, west of the Blue Mountains in the Capertee Valley.
Their 1890s sandstone farmhouse Warramba sits on a 41ha holding that cost $430,000.
They have been running a $600-a-night farm-stay on the property just outside Lithgow, where Varcoe grew up, some 225km from Sydney in the Central Tablelands.
They have signalled their intention to buy a second rural property.
Bartholomew began her TV career when she won a Sunrise intern competition in 2004, having studied journalism at Charles Sturt University.
Another Sunrise star, Mark Beretta, is selling in Mosman with $15.5 million hopes.
It is a rebuilt double-brick five-bedroom, three-bathroom home on Mandolong Rd that he and wife Rachel have spent years renovating. They are set to be empty nesters after its March 29 auction.
LOWER TIDE IN BONDI
F45 co-founder Rob Deutsch has taken a small loss on a Bondi Beach investment apartment.
Deutsch sold the two-bedroom Jaques Ave abode for $1.615 million, slightly less than the $1.65 million paid in 2019.
During his ownership it was rented for between $1000 and $1150 a week.
Deutsch has eight other apartments in the same complex, the first being bought for $600,000 in 2007.
His investment holdings include two apartments in the pricier Campbell Parade complex Cadigal, which total nearly $20 million.
In 2021 Deutsch also spent $20.65 million on a redevelopment opportunity on Campbell Pde, at the southern end of the beach.
Last year he filed plans to convert the building into a block of four luxury apartments above ground-floor retail.
There are also two apartments in Coogee.
He recently spent about $36 million on a home in Bellevue Hill after selling in Bronte for $17.7 million last year.
And there is Patchway, a weekender at Burradoo, which cost $4.8 million.
SURFING INTO TAMARAMA
Massimo Belgiorno-Nettis, from the family who co-founded the construction and engineering giant Transfield, has bought in Tamarama.
The 1920s Wolaroi Cres home, which cost $9 million, was offered for the first time since being sold for $175,000 in 1986.
The three-level hillside home overlooking Tamarama Beach has four bedrooms, three terraces, two living areas, a heated plunge pool and a wine cellar.
It was sold through NG Farah agent Stephanie Farah in conjunction with Ballard Property and R&W.
Belgiorno-Nettis, a keen hydrofoil surfer on Sydney’s eastern beaches, had until recently called Mosman home.
The director of the Australian Museum Foundation and member of Philanthropy Australia’s New Gen Committee is the son of Michelle and Guido Belgiorno-Nettis.
ANOTHER GOLD RUSH
Palazzo Sul Mare, a bold, gold, Versace-styled beachfront Sandringham estate, has been listed just 19 months after it last sold for $8.38 million in August 2021 to Preeti and Rahul Singh.
The Primrose Ave home attracted seven registered bidders when it was sold to the then CBD-based family by the vendors Meiying Mo and Guangsong Liang, who moved to the lower North Shore.
George Panagopoulos of Sotheby’s holds the listing for the four-bedroom, five-bathroom home with 25m of beach frontage.
The last sale of Palazzo Sul Mare boosted its own record price for the southern suburb overlooking Botany Bay, having set the prior record of $7.8 million in 2015.
It attracted some 5500 page views on realestatee.com.au in its initial week on market.
Got a news tip? Email jonathan.chancellor@news.com.au
First look: New Coast shopping centre for surprise site
A long-empty site in a surprise location will be transformed into a retail showroom complex under fresh plans lodged with the council. FIND OUT WHERE
Revealed: How much rent you need to pay in every Qld suburb
Rents have increased again in 252 Queensland suburbs, reversing the brief downward trend recorded just three months ago. See how your suburb compares!