The Sell: Cayless family home gets a luxury renovation
The luxury Glenhaven home of Parramatta Eels NSW Cup coach Nathan Cayless and wife Erin has undergone a stunning transformation by The Three Birds Renovations team — and starred in a five-part documentary series.
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It has been a busy summer break for the talented Three Birds Renovations team of Lana Taylor, Bonnie Hindmarsh and Erin Cayless.
Their top priority was to finish – and film – the luxury Glenhaven home renovation of Erin and her husband Nathan Cayless, the Parramatta Eels NSW Cup coach.
The Cayless family bought the five-bedroom, four-bathroom Binet home on 2200sq m in late 2020 for $2,715,000.
“Often things take me a little bit longer than the other girls,” Erin confessed.
But husband Nathan took the blame on the video released this week showing their extended journey. It is a five-part video series.
“I think the main reason was probably a little bit my fault with my job with coaching, sort of moving around a fair bit over the last few years.”
Indeed over the past five years, Nathan has squeezed in assistant coach roles at Wests Tigers, the Roosters and the New Zealand rugby league side.
The thing that drew them to the property in 2020 was its land size.
“At the open house, we saw the pool, saw the grass, the tennis court was a bonus, then we came inside and saw the beautiful vaulted ceilings and beautiful features in the home.
“We bought the house within 48 hours,” Erin said.
The renovation style has been dubbed Urban Farmhouse with the fitout featuring a Carrera By Design kitchen complete with fridge from Fhiaba. While Nathan did not get his desired keg cooler on the patio, the barbecue cabinetry using oblique cladding from James Hardie does come with a Merci Maison bar cart.
Meanwhile, Erin’s renovator colleague Bonnie and NRL legend-turned-Fox Sports pundit Nathan Hindmarsh made big news late last year when they sold their modern-coastal styled Glenhaven house for a record $10.3m to tennis champion Lleyton Hewitt and wife Bec.
The Hindmarsh family have stayed in The Hills, buying a 2ha holding at nearby Kenthurst for $4.05m in an off-market deal.
The Hindmarsh clan have been spending time over summer at their beach shack at Pearl Beach, which the Three Birds team renovated in 2016.
The Three Birds Renovations business kicked off in mid-2014 after Lana, Bonnie and Erin had spent hours on the NRL game day sidelines, exchanging tips about paint colours, carpet samples and new bathrooms while their husbands Jason, Nathan and Nathan ran around for the Eels.
ROOSTER’S OFFLOAD BID MISSES MARK
Sydney Roosters and Queensland Origin star Lindsay Collins failed to secure the $1.1m sale of his former Randwick home at a Saturday auction.
Collins, who starred in the 2023 State of Origin series for the Maroons, had a guide of $1m for the two-bedroom Dutruc St apartment that he bought for $865,000 in early 2019.
There were just the two registered bidders, who opened the bidding at $1m and then bid up to $1.06m.
Ray White agents Nick Wiggan and Angus Gorrie then placed a $1.075m vendor bid and later advised that the asking price was $1.1m.
Collins has called Paddington home since 2021 when he paid $2.34m for a three-level terrace with his now-pregnant wife, Kaylah Farrugia.
The Paddington home, which is a stone’s throw from Allianz Stadium, has two bedrooms.
Collins listed the two-bedroom, 90sq m Randwick apartment – which has a lock-up garage – for lease at $750 a week after his move to Paddington.
Buyers were given a $800 to $900 per week rental estimate. The strata levies total $1300 per quarter.
The apartment had just shy of 2800 page views on realestate.com.au before being offered at its onsite auction.
PropTrack gives the median price for two-bedroom Randwick units as $1,157,500 – up 5 per cent annually.
The median price at the time of its 2021 purchase was $930,000.
The 27-year old Brisbane-born prop, who has also represented the Kangaroos, has become one of the Roosters and Maroons most important players in recent years, having started his NRL career in 2017.
Making 802 tackles and averaging 112 run metres per match in 2023, Collins also won the Roosters’ Jack Gibson Medal as the club’s player of the year. He was man of the match in Game II of the 2023 Origin Series, scoring a try.
Collins and Farrugia, who attended the auction solo, married in early 2022.
INVESTOR WANTS $20M FOR CONTROVERSIAL APARTMENTS
Pacific View, a Tamarama apartment block that became the centre of a recent rental increase dispute, has been listed for sale.
Property investor Denis Sinilov, who runs commercial fit-out business Metric Interiors, is seeking $20m.
The 1960s Carlisle St complex was bought in 2021 for $15m by his Infinity 10 Pty Ltd company.
Mr Sinilov had secured plans to knock down the ageing block of nine apartments and replace it with a boutique four-apartment complex.
The 620sq m corner holding is set for a March 21 auction through David Malouf and William Manning, of Highland Property.
The building hit the headlines in April last year when one tenant complained that the rent for his two-bedroom apartment was set to jump from $670 a week to $1100. Another occupant faced a hike from $630 to $1100 before they challenged the increases at the NSW Civil and Administrative Tribunal.
Tenants appealed against the steep rent increases that were not in line with market movements, also taking into account condition of the property. They told of black mould, windows leaking, kitchen cabinets falling apart, flaking paint, along with issues with the hot- water system.
Given the deteriorating conditions, the previous landlord had not sought to raise rents in years. Under new ownership, all nine tenants were hit with rent hikes of up to 70 per cent.
The 40-year-old Russian-born Mr Sinilov had Cohen Farquharson – headed by Luxe Listings cast member Simon Cohen – as his building property manager. The most aggrieved tenant agreed on a new weekly amount of $820, an increase of 22 per cent, accompanied by an agreement for a series of repairs.
$6M BUY! YOU WOULD NOT READ ABOUT IT
Mosman-based prize-winning romance author Penelope Janu has snapped up Baueriana, a modernist pavilion-style farmhouse at Exeter, for $6.1m.
The Southern Highlands property sold at well below its $7.3m asking price. It ranked as the second-most expensive sale in 2023 at Exeter, runner-up to Birrong, the 58ha Rockleigh Rd estate that sold for $6.6m.
The main house at the Baueriana Rd estate has five pavilions architecturally designed to take in its escarpment views while being protected from wind.
The main home has three bedrooms and two bathrooms plus a study, in addition to a large kitchen/dining pavilion with a double-sided French steel fireplace.
At the rear of the house are two double garages with storage spaces and a workshop.
There is also a two-bedroom guest apartment and a studio on the 16ha holding that has elevated views across Morton National Park. Its gardens are by acclaimed landscape architect Peter Fudge, and there are rolling green grazing pastures.
Janu writes romance set mostly in country NSW, with stories about clever and adventurous women who mostly don’t intend to fall in love.
Clouds on the Horizon, released in 2022, was her sixth novel published by HarperCollins Australia. It was the winner in the romantic suspense category of the Australian Romance Readers Awards.
Janu was a solicitor and legal academic for most of her career until becoming a full-time writer after embarking on a Master of Arts in Creative Writing at UTS in her 50s.
BUSHLAND RETREAT WITH ALL THE PERKS
A Terrey Hills bushland retreat with a helipad and hangar equipped with a turntable has been listed for sale.
The deceased estate was owned by Beef Eater and Barbeques Galore founder Peter Woodland, who died in a helicopter crash in the Snowy Mountains in 2022.
Set on 2.27ha, the Mona Vale Rd estate is located adjacent to national parklands.
The five-bedroom, four-bathroom dwelling comes with 20-foot ceilings. It features a library, home office, wine cellar, commercial-sized dark room, studio and a poolside cabana with wet bar. It has a five-car garage.
There is a skywalk above the helipad with treetop seating platform.
There are walking trails throughout the landscaped property filled with gums, banksias, grass plants, elks, stag horns and orchids.
It has been listed through Shayne Hutton and Claudia Cicero of Sydney Country Living.
Woodland purchased the holding for $6m in 2017.
It was reported in 2017 that there were only eight private helipads on the northern beaches when Hutton secured its last sale.
The trophy home had been previously owned by conservationist photographers Richard and Carolyn Green, who had died in a 2015 helicopter crash near Cessnock.
NEW RECORD FOR SUBURB
A Marrickville trophy home, known as the Coiled House, has broken the suburb record by $400,000 when sold for $4.9m prior to its weekend auction.
The Neville St home had a $4m price guide through BresicWhitney’s Adrian Oddi.
Vendors Sonia Royo-Portas and Gonz Portas bought the Californian Bungalow for $1.78m in 2014 and commissioned architect David Boyle for an extension.
MULTI-MILLIONS FOR ART ESTATE
Former Crown Casino boss John Alexander and his wife Alice have listed their 38ha Robertson Southern Highlands retreat, Paloma Estate.
“Similar estates have sold above $35m,” Monique Napper, the Belle Property listing agent, has advised buyers, while adding the property “boasts sculptures, artefacts and artworks that can be negotiated with the purchase”.
“These pieces alone are valued in the millions,” she said.
SOLD AROUND $10M MARK
Kate Klunder and John Balafas have sold their Dover Heights matrimonial abode.
Paul Biller, of Biller Property, secured the sale of the four-bedroom, three-bathroom Portland St house, which had been listed with TRG’s Gavin Rubinstein last year at $10m.
Offers around $10.5m came, but the home reportedly did not fetch that much. It traded at $3.8m in 2015 through Ray White’s Elliott Placks.
Got a property news tip? Email jonathan.chancellor@news.com.au
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