The Sell: Christian Wilkins sells Surry Hills terrace for $1.25m
Christian Wilkins has sold his quirky Surry Hills home for $1.25m, and Carl Barron has bought an eco-paradise in the Southern Highlands. Read the week’s property news in The Sell.
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Fashionista influencer and model Christian Wilkins has sold his quirky Surry Hills home for $1.25m.
Wilkins, the son of TV presenter Richard Wilkins, had bought it for $1.025m in 2020.
The one-bedroom, one-bathroom terrace sits on a tight 65sqm holding.
It came with unimplemented plans for Sarah Gilder-designed additions for a second bedroom and a rooftop terrace that were obtained in 2019 by previous owners Penelope Benton and Emma Price.
It had been marketed as eclectic when he bought the property at the corner of Corben and Foveaux Sts.
The recent marketing by BresicWhitney agent Nick Gill again suggested “you won’t find an entry-level house with more personality than this one”.
The home has a retro kitchen, plus a second level with study up a blue, metal, spiral staircase.
It sits on a 63sqm corner holding with rear sandstone-lined courtyard.
Wilkins added a cocktail bar, which he says was a “secret weapon as it gives the party and its guests a focus point and the host an opportunity to shine”.
“Never feel your home need be magazine-perfect before you have those you love over to visit,” he said when doing an At Home with The Saturday Telegraph in 2022.
He painted the living room pink, his favourite colour.
Before his purchase, Wilkins had lived at the Cremorne home of his entertainment reporter father Richard.
“I moved from the North Shore, which was so peaceful and quiet, to a main road in the city,” he said.
“It’s noisy even at 2am and I can never sleep, but I love it.
“I feel safe and accepted and I am so grateful for my community.”
The 29-year old Wilkins told Stellar last year he intended to spend more time Los Angeles working on his acting and presenting prospects.
“The dream has always been acting, ever since I was a little kid,” he said.
Wilkins has signed with an LA talent agency.
Richard and Christian Wilkins have recently teamed up for podcast project The Apple and The Tree, where the father-son duo hold conversations with celebrities.
Christian has 45,800 followers on Instagram.
BARRON’S FERTILE HIGHLANDS ECO-HOME
Stand-up comedian Carl Barron has bought again in the Southern Highlands.
The Paddington-based Barron has bought in Mount Murray, the small enclave just outside of Robertson, where he’s owned a getaway since 2017.
He’s just spent $1.8m on an eco-friendly, solar-passive, two-storey home on 3.6ha that was once a potato farm.
The four-bedroom home was built facing due north four decades ago by environmentalists Helen and David Tranter, with basalt stone from the property.
Dark slate floors mediate the temperature of the house, keeping it warm in winter and cool in summer.
There’s a slow-combustion Rayburn stove and fireplace as well.
The Tranters established a commercial waratah, protea and native flower business, with its flower preparation and packing workshop converted from a cottage.
The couple encouraged the expansion of the original rainforest, along with other tree types including native frangipani, lemon and aniseed myrtle, bunya pine and ginkgo.
Former roof tiler Barron once said if he had more spare time, he would take up bird watching. And DiJones Real Estate marketing suggested the property was a “haven for birds”, including lyrebirds.
The property is 400m along from the 8ha he bought seven years ago for $1.755m.
The queen of Australian comedy, Noelene Brown, and her scriptwriter husband, Tony Sattler, put the location on the map when they had a 2ha Mount Murray estate that fetched $2.95m in 2020.
Barron, 60, who was born in Longreach, Queensland, has called Paddington home since last year, when he spent $6.75m on an 1890s terrace.
Barron had relocated from Darling Point, where he spent $4.7m on a penthouse that he sold for $6m.
ALL DOWNHILL FROM HERE AS CASEY SELLS UP
Builder Tim Casey, who heads the troubled construction company St Hilliers, has sold Sastrugi Lodge, Thredbo, after owning it for 25 years.
The heritage-listed, leasehold 1950s lodge with distinctive semicircular facade came with a record $9m-plus price guidance through Michelle Stynes at Forbes Stynes Real Estate.
The modernist-style lodge was designed by architects Otto Ernegg and Eric Nicholls for Andrew Thyne Reid, who chaired James Hardie until his death in 1964. The engineer had headed the syndicate that developed the snowfields at Kosciuszko Thredbo in the Snowy Mountains.
It was restored along with an award-winning extension by architect Rob Brown when rebuilt on its 773sqm around two decades ago by Bellevarde Constructions, with stone, zinc, timber and metal aplenty.
The works won the RAIA Canberra Medallion for the ACT top housing award and the MBA’s house additions award in the $500,000 to $1m division in 2000.
There is a registered lease until 2057 having been secured for $200,000 with the proviso that $200,000 be immediately spent on improvements.
The title has a 2019 lien over the lease by Casey’s former wife Anne Marie, the daughter of the late racing trainer Bart Cummings.
Sastrugi is one of only a handful of Thredbo properties with five bedrooms facing north on the slopes in the high-altitude village.
The previous highest-known sale was when Stynes sold Tussock for $4,499,000 to Audio Systems Logic founder Matthew Palavidis in 2020.
The latest undisclosed sale will have likely snared a record price for the Australian Alps too, which stands at $7m-plus at Mt Buller in Victoria.
Entry point into the Thredbo market is a studio at $485,000.
PRICE REDUCTION SHOULD SEE MALOUF IN THE PINK
No sale yet, but the price reduction to $23m for the beachfront house called Gidget at Palm Beach ought to generate heightened buying interest.
It was last December when the two-storey Palm Spring-style property was listed by Ahoy Club yacht broker Ian Malouf and his family.
It comes with five bedrooms, four bathrooms and two bars through father-son listing agents David and BJ Edwards at LJ Hooker.
Its mid-century interiors, handpainted murals and a backyard slide saw it quickly become a favourite on TikTok and Instagram, which especially liked its banana-leaf wallpaper, Barbie-pink cabinetry and its leopard-pattern carpet.
It has also garnered more than 22,200 page views, where it really counts — on realestate.com.au.
Ian’s daughter Lara Malouf has a one per cent stake in the 613sq m property on Snapperman Beach reserve overlooking Pittwater.
The sale of the adjoining Iluka Rd beachfront Moondoggie, a seven-bedroom, four-bathroom residence on a 617sq m block, settled last month, though not reflecting its reputed $25m sale price.
It had long been reported as having been sold to Malouf in December 2021 on delayed settlement terms by Joanna McNiven, widow of the late bond dealer John McNiven.
A sales contract with Malouf was confirmed by a caveat lodged earlier this year by solicitors Kosmin & Associates.
The caveat did not advise any of the terms such as its price or settlement date. The official transfer documentation has McNiven securing $18m from Lenka Dransfield, the CAL Marketing snack food wholesaler.
Malouf, who sold his Dial-a-Dump business to Bingo Industries in 2018 in a $577m cash and shares deal, will retain his nearby double-block home Anakela, which set the $40m record in late 2022.
“It’s too many toys in the one street,” Malouf advised on the reason for his two listings.
ART DECO GEM FOR SALE AFTER 50+ YEARS
An Art Deco apartment in the Kaloola complex at Potts Point has been listed for the first time in over five decades, by the Cosimi-Blasi family.
It is listed with a $1.2m price guide through Nuri Shik of Ray White Elizabeth Bay, 100 times the price it sold for in 1973 – $12,000.
Located on St Neot Ave, the one-bedroom, one-bathroom apartment spans 59sq m with views across Woolloomooloo Bay to the Harbour Bridge.
It is on the first floor in the northwest corner.
The Kaloola building has a rooftop with shared laundry and harbour panorama.
Featuring Georgian influences, Kaloola was designed in 1927 by architect Claud Hamilton and comprises just 20 apartments.
Beatrice Cosimi-Blasi was born in Italy in 1921 and came to Australia in 1956, becoming well known in the Australian Italian community, having worked at La Fiamma Newspaper in the 1960s before starting the Il Corriere di Settegiorni newspaper in 1974. She often filled in for Mamma Lena Gustin on the Italian program on 2KY.
Family members recall she spent her days painting in the sunroom, reading on the settee in the living area, and wandering up to the Cross to do her shopping or into Circular Quay for gelato.
She also hosted many a card game in her apartment.
RETREAT FROM COAST COMPLETE
Mortgage broker and entrepreneur Andrew Spira and his estranged partner Julia Maguire, boss of The Capital Network, have sold their Shoal Bay investment property for $1.155 million through PRD agent Dane Queenan
The guidance had been $1.05 million.
The four-bedroom, 1985-built home was bought in 2020 for $670,000 as a coastal retreat.
CANNON-BROOKS’ HIGHLANDS BUY-UP
Mike Cannon-Brookes has continued his Southern Highlands acquisitions.
The Atlassian billionaire has spent $1 million in Burradoo for a vacant 7ha holding.
Cannon-Brookes has other holdings in Burradoo, including the 1880s mansion Cooliatta.
By The Sell’s running tally he has spent $130 million securing more than 1020ha, much as a regenerative agricultural enterprise that is orientated to increasing carbon in the soil.
DANIEL JOHNS PULLS HOUSE FROM AUCTION
Daniel Johns, the former Silverchair frontman, pulled his four-bedroom, two-bathroom Merewether investment from its scheduled midweek auction.
It was initially listed in February with $3 million hopes.
Presence Real Estate agent Chasse Ede had a revised $2.6 million guide.
Johns had just celebrated his 17th birthday when he bought the Ranclaud St property for $360,000 in 1996.
Got a property news tip? Email jonathan.chancellor@news.com.au
Originally published as The Sell: Christian Wilkins sells Surry Hills terrace for $1.25m
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