Rich people problems: Millionaires going to extreme lengths in ritzy Sydney enclaves
Ending in lawsuits and vandalism, one thing’s driving Sydney’s richest residents crazy. James Weir parachutes into the wealthiest streets to cop a glimpse.
There are only three things a Sydneysider wants when it comes to a home, according to a local millionaire and somewhat gatekeeper who has the keys to the most expensive enclaves.
“If you’ve got lots of money: Waterfront. If you’ve got less money: Water views. Not much money? Water glimpses,” says Monika Tu, one of the harbour city’s glitziest real estate agents, who reports she sold between $300-$500 million worth of property in the last financial year.
She’s sitting in a zebra-print chair. On a faux Louis XV-style desk with gold gilt accents rests her black alligator skin Hermes handbag, which costs as much as a Kia (Tu bristles at the car comparison – it’s not glamorous enough). Though she doesn’t live in a mansion with water views, she sells a lot of them.
“Everyone will go the extra mile to get that view.”
And if something – anything! – gets in the way of that view, or … glimpse?
“Recently, I had a client call who told me to come have a look at his house,” she says. “He’d been away for a few months and his neighbour chopped his tree.”
She sped her Porsche/BMW/Range Rover [take your pick – she says she can’t remember what car she drives on any particular day] over to the surprise logging.
“He loved the tree. … The tree disappeared.”
She’s sympathetic. But she also knows it’s “a human need” to be close to the water, without obstruction. Especially when you’ve paid more than $10 million – the minimum value of real estate she represents as an agent – to be located near the damn thing.
“If you buy in the eastern suburbs, you pay top dollar,” she says. “People buy because of the view – so, if the view is blocked, it affects the value of the house.”
Besides: “It’s feng shui.”
Sydneysiders are in a battle over views, trees and various other obstructions.
Right now, the wealthy denizens of Tamarama – an exclusive beachside enclave tucked between Bondi and Coogee – are whipped up into a flurry and pointing fingers at each other over the mysterious poisoning of seven 30-year-old palm trees that obstructed the view of the cove.
“Who did it?” one neighbour in the area frets to news.com.au. “That’s the question we’re all asking. It’s vicious. Vicious.”
“Some people will stop at nothing,” says JCorp Construction’s Jason Natoli – who has been building luxury homes in the city’s east for 25 years – about Sydneysiders’ quest for the perfect water outlook.
In an unrelated case in December, former Allianz chairman John Curtis applied for an order through the NSW Land and Environment Court for palm trees to be removed from the neighbouring yard of Indonesian businessman Winardi Pranatajaya, claiming the foliage obstructed his million-dollar outlook. Curtis lives in a Darling Point arts-and-crafts mansion he bought in 1993 for $1.62m. He tried to re-sell in 2013 with an asking price of $20 million-plus. The application about the trees was refused.
It was a similar story for barrister Georgina Black, who lives in a $27-million Rose Bay trophy home and took her neighbour to court because some newly-planted palm trees ruined her once-uninterrupted “iconic views” of the Harbour Bridge, Opera House and city skyline. Neither Mr Curtis nor Ms Black is accused of any involvement in illegally removing any trees.
“If you’re sitting on a property worth $25 million and then you’ve got views that are blocked, if you take away those trees, that value can go to $30 million or $35 million,” says Bader Naaman, head of prestige valuations at CBRE who looks after properties with prices that soar up to $150 million. “When you’ve got an ultra-luxury home on the harbourfront that you’ve paid top dollar for, you’re going to want premium views.”
The hearing for Ms Black included an on-site tour of the manor and its “devastating” lost views. Ms Black’s town planner provided evidence that, before the frond infiltration, the “exceptional” views were once enjoyed from the kitchen island bench and sink.
It was suggested the joy of these spaces was now being hindered because of the encroaching fronds.
“Nobody owns a view,” says Ashley Horry, a tree technician from Pretty Palms Tree Services in Sydney’s east.
“People have a 170-degree view of the harbour but there’ll be just one bit of a tree that sticks up over the Harbour Bridge or Opera House and they want it removed because it’s not an ‘iconic view’.”
It’s in Sydney’s coastal neighbourhoods where “everyone’s got the money to fight each other,” he says.
“I’ve seen people say, ‘Yeah, you can prune my trees but I want $10k’. And both blokes have millions of dollars. But then old mate, even though he’s got 10k in loose change, he says ‘F**k you’.”
YOU COULD MAKE $4M
In Rose Bay, the orange afternoon sun bounces off the rippling water and seers into your cheeks. It’s a short drive from Point Piper – one of the wealthiest suburbs in Australia, with an average taxable income of around $269,777, according to the Australian Taxation Office. An average home can cost $10 million. In these waterside pockets, time seems to slow down to the pace of hundred-dollar bills fluttering through the air after they’re tossed off one of the many cliff tops.
On this recent hazy Sunday, Georgina Black’s mansion overlooks slick white yachts bobbing on the sparkling sea. The sound of thumpy doof-doof music from Bluetooth speakers aboard the vessels morphs into an audible blur.
There’s the Harbour Bridge! And the skyline! And the Opera House … sort of. The breeze blows a branch in the way.
News.com.au tries approaching Ms Black for comment over several weeks but she’s not home to enjoy whatever is left of her partially obstructed million-dollar view.
Next door to Ms Black is the estate with the palm trees that have caused so much agitation. It’s a pastel pink chateau – the real-life version of Barbie’s Dreamhouse.
While not speaking about Ms Black’s case, luxury property valuer Bader Naaman says people will generally go to “extreme lengths” to protect their outlooks and recalls some homeowners who have purchased neighbouring properties for “a ridiculous amount of money” just to control their views.
Like most cases where Sydney millionaires take each other to court over views and trees, the legal showdown between Ms Black and Samira Jeihooni (the wife of property developer Arash Tavakoli) descended into a game of semantics about whether a row of palm trees equates to a “hedge”.
Only in Sydney will two millionaires have the means and motivation to shell out exorbitant amounts of cash during a cost-of-living crisis to argue the nitty-gritty details of how foliage constitutes a “screen”.
As determined in the judgment: “[It’s] unlikely that someone attempting to establish a hedge or screen would have planted palm trees which characteristically have a straight slender trunk with fronds at the top of the trunk.”
The application was dismissed in 2023 and Ms Black appealed. It was dismissed again last year and Ms Black was ordered to pay Ms Jeihooni’s costs.
In Sydney, it seems there’s something in the water.
William Home, an arborist from Dr Treegood who has been working for about 20 years in the eastern suburbs, says the high-cost battle for views is unique to the harbour city.
“Whether it’s water views or skyline views, it’s the same thing,” he says. “That’s because there’s so many different coves and inlets to see the harbour at.”
JCorp’s Jason Natoli — whose own view of Bronte Beach is blocked by a 40-foot Norfolk pine — says trees in the eastern suburbs “have a target on their backs”.
“If you can get rid of two trees, you could make millions of money doing so,” he says. “All of a sudden you’ve got gun barrel views of the harbour – and you’ve made three or four million dollars.”
Prestige valuer Naaman says “if you take away a tree, you’re looking at $2 million, $3 million, $4 million on top of the value”.
Some residents simply aren’t satisfied with splashing cash in court or complaining on the community Facebook group. Some are opting for more extreme measures.
“People are breaking the law because they know the impact a tree can have on [a home’s] value,” Naaman says.
IT’S A FIRST-CLASS CRIME
“I’ve had people in tears telling me they planted a tree thirty years ago and their kids used to climb in it and then some bloke moves in down the road and f**king poisons the trees for f**king views,” says tree technician Ashley Horry.
Reports of tree poisonings in the Harbour City’s ritziest enclaves are on the rise. It made national news this month when seven 30-year-old palm trees were poisoned by an unknown assailant at a mansion in Tamarama — an exclusive beachside pocket that brash buyer’s agent Simon Cohen describes as “The O.C meets Sydney”, a reference to the Y2K TV series that centres around a group of rich teens in California.
When news.com.au visits the strip, neighbours gossip under the shadow of the dead tree carcasses that still loom over the area.
“Everyone’s walking on eggshells trying to prove, ‘It’s not me, it’s not me!’,” says one posh resident while adjusting their Tom Ford sunglasses. “ … If my palm trees died, I’d be really happy.”
They say there are bigger fish to fry in the neighbourhood. … Like, even uglier trees.
“You look at the Norfolk palm on the other end of the street and you think, ‘Isn’t THAT an obliteration?’ Let’s be honest.”
Peter Hannigan, an arborist from The Tree Fellas who has worked with the owners of the now-dead Tamarama palms for over a decade, says the palms “have been the subject of some contention in the past” and “numerous complaints have been received … over the years from [people] complaining about these trees blocking their views.”
One resident living nearby has a clear message: “The trees were hideous and just weeds anyway, so why wouldn’t you knock ‘em over?”
The Tamarama palm massacre follows a mass killing of almost 300 trees that were destroyed on public land next to harbour-front homes in Longueville on Sydney’s affluent lower north shore.
Tree technician Horry, who has been servicing Sydney’s exclusive communities for over a decade and deals with multiple cases of vandalisms each month, says poisonings are “rampant” in the city’s expensive eastern suburbs.
“Anywhere with a view,” he says.
People, armed with drills from the hardware store, are boring holes into the roots and pouring in chemicals.
“Go around Dover Heights, there’s poisoned trees everywhere.”
He’s talking about the waterside suburb where mansions are perched on jaw-dropping cliffs that look out over the Tasman Sea.
While CCTV has recently started to be implemented in capturing tree vandalism, it’s still only recent technology.
Hell, if none of the garage-mounted home cameras captured con-woman Melissa Caddick when she snuck out of her Dover Heights mansion to outrun the feds in 2020, what luck is there catching midnight tree vandalism?
The struggle has become so fraught, Waverley mayor Will Nemesh, who calls the act an “inexcusable” crime, tells news.com.au council will consider a motion at its next meeting at the end of the month and “formally call on the State Government to increase fines for illegal tree vandalism”.
Vandals can currently be hit with a $3,000 fine per poisoned tree, with punishment jumping to $110,000 if it’s taken to court.
If residents are already concerned about losing views, they’ll be shaking like a leaf when they hear Waverley council’s plans to increase the area’s tree canopy by 35 per cent by 2032. Last year, Randwick City Council – the local government area that includes waterside suburbs Clovelly and Bronte, the same area where radio host Jackie O Henderson is building a new waterfront mansion – planted 2,000 trees.
“There’d be no trees left in Sydney if everyone had their way,” says one wealthy doctor who neighbours a development in the east.
He lives a short walk from Wolseley Road, the country’s most expensive street, where the typical house costs a solid $45 million and even the garages have gun barrel views of the harbour.
A nearby neighbour’s tree has recently been killed. The cause of death? Drilled and poured with poison. It’s the same deal for another big tree on an under-construction lot nearby, says luxury builder Jason Natoli.
The suspects: everyone from how-dee-doo neighbours to construction moguls, says arborist William Home. And sometimes the owners themselves, hoping to side-step council approvals.
Forget Pip Edwards – dead trees are now frequently the topic of whodunit gossip in the effervescent eastern suburbs.
Near the doctor’s estate, a concrete mansion has recently been constructed, with architecturally decorative archways and newly planted trees. The budding leaves dance in the breeze.
Right now, the trunks are as thin as a newborn baby’s pinky finger. But they won’t be forever. They’ll grow to be the size of an adult’s torso – with a tangled mess of foliage splayed everywhere.
“They’re asking for trouble,” the doctor says, arching an eyebrow, as he stands on the steps of his property.
The wind blows and a wispy branch is thrust over the glowing twilight view of Sydney Harbour.
Facebook: @hellojamesweir
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