The Sell: Jackie O plans to bring ‘Amalfi’ vibe to Clovelly
“Jackie O” Henderson has lodged $5.058m new home plans for her Clovelly oceanfront property, aiming for an ‘Amalfi Coast’ vibe.
NSW
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“Jackie O” Henderson has lodged $5.058m new home plans for her Clovelly oceanfront property.
The four-bedroom home has been designed by current go-to architect Madeleine Blanchfield, who has gone with an elegant paradise feel under a flat roof in Colorbond shale grey.
National KIIS FM breakfast star Henderson intends to construct a three-storey house with a central courtyard plus a pool, rainwater tank and double garaging.
“It’s like you are in Italy on the Amalfi Coast,” she recently said of the location to her listeners and disbelieving co-host Kyle Sandilands.
Her landscaping by Dangar Barin Smith will be a mix of native and Mediterranean species, including long-leaved wattle, old man banksia, devil’s ivy, prostrate rosemary and prickly rasp fern with a ‘‘root barrier’’ to protect nearby structures and services.
It was in March last year when Henderson spent $13.25m on the 1960s home of JP Morgan managing director Kierin Deeming and his wife Justine. It comes with views over Gordons Bay towards Wedding Cake Island from its 492sq m holding. She attended the auction with daughter Kitty and her financial adviser David O’Callaghan.
The only sale on the strip since was an oceanfront block of four apartments offered for the first time in 45 years that reputedly sold for about $13m to a Vaucluse buyer who also plans a new home.
The radio host sold her Woollahra house for $12.5m in early 2023, having paid $11m in 2020 after her separation from husband Lee Henderson.
Alexander Phillips of the Phillips Pantzer Donnelle agency, who sold Henderson the house, estimates her building block would fetch $14m in the current improved and tightly-held Clovelly market.
“We had issued 13 contracts,” Phillips reminded The Sell. He estimates Henderson could pocket $25m if sold after it’s built, though it is apparently Henderson’s forever home.
Phillips pointed out a recently completed Bower St, Manly, house designed by Blanchfield had sold for a $35m suburb record.
Phillips was declared NSW’s top selling agent in the annual REB rankings released midweek, a position he has retained nine years in a row after selling 205 properties for $973m in 2023.
HUNT OVER FOR NRL STAR’S LUXE HOLIDAY LET
St George Dragons star halfback Ben Hunt and his nutritionist wife Bridget have bought a holiday letting home in the Byron Bay hinterland.
They’ve spent $2.7m on an acreage in Newrybar, near Bangalow.
The 20ha property has been a luxury farm stay in the portfolio of local entrepreneur Norm Black, co-owner of TripADeal and his accommodation superhost wife Fiona. It had been initially listed at $2,950,000 after the Blacks had renovated the three-bedroom homestead following its $1.9m purchase in 2021 from Transport NSW.
It became part of their Black Cockatoo Retreats portfolio that includes farmstays in Coorabell and Bangalow. Rented at just shy of $1500 a night, the house has four bedrooms with two living areas, with views to Mount Warning.
The Blacks added a hot tub next to the swimming pool. There is a four-bay machinery shed with a self-contained studio.
The are 3000 macadamia trees on the block.
The Hunts have called Caringbah South home since 2019, when they paid $1.61m for a 2010 architect-built Queenslander-style four-bedroom home.
Hunt still owns a property in Bridgeman Downs, northwest of Brisbane, that is a four-bedroom, two-bathroom rental. It was up for rent last year at $825 a week, having been initially leased at $670 a week. He built it in 2014, having paid $375,000 for the 500sq m block a year earlier.
The Rockhampton-born Hunt, who departed the Broncos to Sydney in 2017, is off contract at the Dragons at the end of the season as he comes toward the end of a six-year deal he penned in 2019 that made him one of the NRL’s top earners. He has been the club’s leading Dally M Medal vote-getter in the past three seasons.
CURRENCY TRADER SELLS OLD FAMILY HOME IN MAROUBRA FOR $5.3M
Ivan Ritossa, the highly regarded former BT, Lehman Brothers and Barclays currency trader, has sold the Maroubra home of his late parents.
It was in his capacity as executor of his late mother Maria’s estate.
The Mons Ave home has been sold for $5.3m to Cooper & Mons Pty Ltd directed by Peter Goldberg and Mustaga Geren, who have quickly listed it as a $1850 a week rental for six months through Anna Hudson at Sothebys.
The four-bedroom, three-bathroom house that sits on a 790sq m holding with ocean views was marketed as having subdivision potential by its selling agent Christian West at PPD.
The house was the subject of a recent Supreme Court dispute between the London-based Ritossa and his estranged brother Anthony over the administration of the estate following the death of their mother in 2019.
The estate consisted mostly of the two-storey home Maria shared with their father Giovanni, a spray painter, who died in 2015.
The house was built after the property cost $28,000 in 1972 on the dress-circle strip that has seen 13 house sales over $3m in the past six years, previously peaking at $5.15m in 2022.
The court noted the brothers’ relationship was “toxic”.
The Dubai-based Anthony, who describes himself as a family office wealth management influencer and impact investor, struggles to match his brother’s acclaimed status though he did snare a recent Vanity Fair profile.
Probate wasn’t easy with Maria leaving three wills – dated 2007, 2015 and 2018 – which gave rise to potential competing claims. The first left it equally to her two sons, with Anthony apparently set to get everything in the middle will. The 2018 will left the estate to Ivan’s children.
The clan will shortly gather at St Jean Cap Ferrat to celebrate a family wedding, which will see vacationing Sydneysiders among the invited guests.
BELROSE PAIR ARE LIVING THE DREAM
Belrose couple Lara Falco and Peter Bird have revealed themselves on Facebook to be Dream Home contestants in the new Channel 7 renovation show to be hosted by Dr Chris Brown.
The now renovated home (spoiler alert) cost $2.1m in mid-2022.
Their purchase was a single-level Wingara Grove home marketed as being in the golden triangle of Belrose, with a family-friendly floorplan including four carpeted double bedrooms, by its Parnell Partners agent Anne Roche.
Seven’s script will have its viewers believe rising interest rates and building costs thwarted the couple’s plans of renovating their dilapidated home. The couple did buy when the median four-bedroom prices in Belrose was peaking at $2.5m.
It now sits at $2,225,000, up 8.5 per cent, according to PropTrack, over the past year after 36 sales.
The couple’s first public appearance was in 2015 when they appeared in the Sunday Telegraph’s weddings of the week. They both grew up in Sydney, but met in London while travelling through Europe in 2010, with their 2011 engagement coming with a ring from Cerrone.
The couple had Leo, the first of their two children, at their wedding in a tear-jerker moment, walking down the aisle with a sign saying “Daddy, here comes Mummy”.
Peter established a company called Bird Electrical Marine, while Lara has had businesses including The Faux Fernery and a sign-making business.
Dream Home, which begins on Seven on May 26, promises to take the home renovation genre to new heights, as six pairs battle it out, room by room, in transforming their suburban family homes.
MEDIA CHIEF’S WEEKENDER PASSED IN
The Avoca Beach weekender of the late media executive Brian Walsh passed in at its weekend auction.
The 2023-built Ficus Ave home had been listed with an $8m guide by McGrath Terrigal agents Mat Steinwede and Trevor Hamilton.
The four-bedroom, four-marble-bathroom home sits on a 986sq m north-facing lakeside block that the Elizabeth Bay-based Walsh bought in 2012 for $1,295,000.
The buyers were told Walsh hadn’t had the chance to move into the new house he had built before his death in March last year, aged 67.
It was marketed as a Hamptons-style designer home offering the pinnacle of luxurious beachside living on coveted Ficus Ave.
It has ocean views.
The interior showcases oak floors and vaulted ceilings throughout its living and dining areas with two gas fireplaces. It has an internal lift.
There is an entertaining deck with outdoor kitchen and access to the pool, and a gate to the lagoon and beach.
Walsh’s Elizabeth Bay apartment recently sold for $7.1m to other owners in the Manhattan complex. The two-bedroom, two-bathroom Greenknowe Ave sub-penthouse cost $2.73m in 2007 and had a $200,000 balcony makeover by Jamie Durie in 2010.
Walsh had worked at the Ten Network, the UK’s Sky Broadcasting, Sky TV in Asia and Foxtel.
HIGH HOPES AT PENTHOUSE
The Hope Estate vineyard family has emerged as the record setting $8.5 million buyer of a Newcastle penthouse in the McCaffrey wing of The Royal complex.
The 16th floor three-bedroom, three-bathroom King St apartment, which sold through Anthony Merlo of Colliers, spans 326sq m plus balconies, has triple garaging and a 28sq m storage room.
The Hopes sold their sub-penthouse for $5 million.
SALES PRAYERS ARE ANSWERED
A conversion of the gothic 1870s Balmain convent built for the Sisters of the Good Samaritan has been sold after spending four years on and off market.
The eight-bedroom house fetched $13.05 million when sold by Stephen and Penelope James to Thomas Bailey.
The four-level Edmund Blacket-designed premises had $12 million hopes when listed in 2020.
Set on 676sq m, the Jane St residence is serviced by a lift.
TROPHY PASSES TO NEW HANDS
The Great Mackerel Beach trophy home of Michael Peschardt, who long ranked as the BBC’s leading international interviewer, and his wife Sarah has been sold for $4.9 million by BJ Edwards of LJ Hooker, having initially sought $6 million.
The Ross Smith Pde home had been extensively renovated, ensuring views across Pittwater to Palm Beach, where the buyer Bill Anderson owns on Florida Rd.
Got a property news tip? Email jonathan.chancellor@news.com.au
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Originally published as The Sell: Jackie O plans to bring ‘Amalfi’ vibe to Clovelly
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