Secrets of Russell Crowe’s ‘endorphin inducing $42m home

I was invited into Russell Crowe’s $42 million Australian pad and what I saw next was something I won’t forget, writes property journalist James MacSmith.

James MacSmith

3 min read

November 28, 2024 - 5:00AM

Russell Crowe is offering up the most unique of experiences possible.

Years ago, when I was fortunate enough to be in Russell Crowe’s employ, I visited him at his Finger Wharf bolthole he has just quietly put up for sale ‘for $42m+’.

I was invited there by the Oscar winner to discuss a new project for his beloved South Sydney Rabbitohs – the foundation NRL side he had bought two years prior.

The move to turn the Woollomooloo wharf, which dates back to 1910, into homes, a hotel and restaurants 25 years ago is one of the few more recent planning decisions Sydney has actually got right.

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The incredible Woolloomooloo Finger Wharf. Picture: Daily Telegraph, Monique Harmer

And that is nowhere more evident than at the pointy end of the famous stretch of timber where Crowe’s home sits.

After passing through security I was ushered into his private lift that ferries visitors up to the entire floor, north facing 1000 sqm ‘unit’ that was converted from four homes into one.

The lobby is understatedly grand with the requisite pieces of Renaissance and Roman art.

I nervously waited there for a while rehearsing my own lines before I was summoned into the thickly atmospheric scene that was Russell’s study.

The great actor sat quietly behind an imposing timber desk with the dark curtains slightly drawn behind him – all in all an artisan’s understated take on the Oval Office.

Serpentine swirls of tobacco smoke floated through the cool air around him as his drew on a European cigarette – or so I imagined – whose musky scent I hadn’t experienced before.

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I was entertained. (Photo by Universal/Getty Images)

It was closing in on winter, the footy season was well and truly underway, and Crowe sported a green, red and grey Rabbiths hoodie he had helped design, tracky dacks to match, and Birkenstocks with footy socks.

He wore a welcoming grin and as I self-consciously walked over to shake his hand, the surreal experience took on an almost haluccinogenic sheen.

As I made my way across the musky room my attention was tugged away from the Gladiator to the shimmering emerald green water shifting silently in the bay behind him.

The room, the whole home, gave the otherworldly experience that it was floating above the harbour, hovering over it even, like the spaceship Nostromo readying to land on another foreign world.

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Crowe’s 1000 sqm, north facing home sits at the end of the famous wharf.

Inside another one of the Finger Wharf homes. Picture: Supplied

The outlook from another one of the homes on the wharf.

The heritage listed gem dates back over 100 years.

I felt like I was walking on water. Like I was walking on water on LSD.

This endorphin inducing overwater experience, is the ‘uniqueness’ of this one-of-a-kind home, that is being used to help sell its prospective buyers.

It’s the steak and the sizzle.

There simply is no other home like it, probably anywhere else in the world. And that’s what will appeal the most to whoever is lucky enough to be its new guardian.

That headspinning sensation of weightlessness over water stayed with me for a long time after, like a reverse hangover.

It was like walking on water, like this but worse.

I only met Crowe a few times in my two seasons with the Rabbitohs. For some reason he sometimes gets a hard time from those in the bleachers. Then again, who doesn’t?

But he was always likeable, always polite, always shook hands with whoever he met and always remembered their name next time.

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Russell loves his Rabbitohs.

With this Caesar of the people nestled in behind his own Resolute Desk and the magical water of the world’s greatest harbour gleaming behind him, I too felt like a King.

We chatted about footy – Russell loves to chat about footy (who doesn’t) – and he told me how I should prepare for and perform in front of the camera for a presenting spot on the Rabbitohs website and social media.

He had had some experience in that sort of thing.

The exquisite nature of Rusty’s extraordinary home stuck with me for a long time after, in fact this story is Exhibit A that it still does, as did the celebrated thespian’s commanding presence and colloquial nature.

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Rugby League and Hollywood are a match made in Heaven. Picture: Sports Fox

What burnt just as bright and I wish I had pondered more on it (I have promised myself I will from now on), was his advice on my new role – and I’m paraphrasing: “when aren’t you nervous about something new” he said, or words far more eloquent to that effect.

We all doubt ourselves but you have to knuckle down, believe in yourself and get on with it. That was the gist of it.

Advice as valuable now as it ever was.

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