Liam Hemsworth plots $14.6 million designer digs in Byron Bay hinterland

Liam Hemsworth is hoping to – again – follow in the footsteps of his uber-famous Hollywood star big brother Chris Hemsworth by building his own grand designer residence in the Byron Bay hinterland.

Fortunately for locals, the younger Hemsworth isn’t planning a house of the gargantuan scale of the Broken Head trophy home of Chris and his wife Elsa Pataky, but it also won’t come cheap in this age of soaring building costs.

Liam Hemsworth has grand plans.Credit: Bethany Rae

The star of The Hunger Games movie series will have forked out more than $20 million before he moves in, given the $6.8 million he paid for the 37 hectares in 2021 and an estimated building cost of $14.6 million.

The development application lodged on council records is for a two-storey, pavilion-style residence that is recessed into the hillside and designed by Melbourne-based architectural practice SSdH. There are two open-plan living areas and a rumpus room that flank an internal courtyard, and a large cabana and terrace that leads to an almost 18-metre swimming pool.

Liam Hemsworth and his girlfriend Gabriella Brooks pictured in late 2023.Credit: Matt Jelonek/Getty Images for NGV

All five bedrooms have en suites, and the floorplan includes a large gymnasium and a sauna.

“It’s going to be terrific. He’s done a great job,” said neighbour Tom Lane, of the Oroton fashion empire family, and who bought the property Four Winds next door last year for $8.3 million.

Lane said he’s already been shown the plans by Hemsworth, and appreciated the environmental efforts involved and the fact the house is dug into the hill so it stands only marginally above the ridgeline.

So, not quite the “Fortress Hemsworth” that Chris spent almost three years and $20 million building near Seven Mile Beach.

Meanwhile, Liam won’t be homeless. He has another Newrybar property, a former wedding venue known as Newrybar Downs, that he bought in 2020 for $6.5 million to call home. Newrybar is in the Ballina shire.

The local jury is still out on the home building plans lodged last week by Afterpay billionaire Anthony Eisen and his wife Samantha.

Eisen bought the Wategos Beach house for $23 million last year, and is hoping to demolish it to make way for a three-level house designed by architect firm Kennon at a cost of $12 million with basement garaging, a swimming pool, rooftop spa, and a self-contained apartment. What’s known in billionaire parlance as a weekender, of sorts.

Katie turns a page

The house in Cypress estate at Suffolk Park is being sold for $4.85 million to $5.2 million.Credit: Domain

Billionaire Harvey Norman boss Katie Page is a rare visitor to her Byron Bay retreat, prompting her to list it last week for $4.85 million to $5.2 million.

Katie Page and her husband Gerry Harvey at the Magic Millions in January.Credit: Luke Marsden

It is one of seven luxury houses in the Cypress estate at Suffolk Park developed by Page and next door to her husband Gerry Harvey’s resort Byron at Byron that he sold in 2019 for $42.7 million to Dubai-based Syrian billionaire Ghassan Aboud.

Helene Adams, of her eponymous agency, said Page’s favourite Byron Bay getaway is by far the largest in the boutique complex and is set on 873 square metres of which the freestanding residence takes up about half.

Sharing the development are Craig and Leonie Hemsworth, parents to local trophy home builders Chris and Liam, and who paid $2.4 million for their digs in 2016.

The Joey owner buys in Palmy

As restaurateur Ben May battles the NIMBY forces at Palm Beach over the restricted opening hours of his landmark restaurant The Joey, behind the scenes he has also bought into the local holiday home market for $10 million.

Fashion designer Heidi Middleton at her Palm Beach house Porta Rossa that she sold for $10 million.Credit: Nick Moir

For his money, May is set to take possession of the 1940s-built, rustic Mediterranean-style residence known as Porta Rossa that was sold by his friend and fashion designer Heidi Middleton.

May exchanged to buy the house late last year through LJ Hooker’s B.J. Edwards as work was nearing completion of a $7 million rebuild of the old Barrenjoey Boatshed that was at the centre of a local maelstrom last week.

As headlines detailed, a bid by May and co-owner Rob Domjen to extend trading hours of The Joey from 4pm to 11pm was rejected by the council on the weight of just seven submissions that opposed it, and despite a stonking 132 submissions and an independent expert assessment in its favour.

Ben May has joined the Palm Beach homeowners for $10 million.Credit: Alex Marks

Premier Chris Minns has since weighed in to the fracas over concerns such NIMBY-ism has again stifled the fun and employment opportunities for young people in NSW, and the fight is expected to head to the Land and Environment Court unless Northern Beaches Council manages to find some resolution before then.

“I’ll be able to throw pebbles on the rooftops of all those people who are objectors,” May said on Friday, with tongue firmly in cheek.

May’s other high-end side hustle in the real estate sector emerged on title records last week when his corporate interests settled on a three-bedroom apartment in North Bondi for $7.85 million.

The apartment in Ben Buckler was sold by Laing+Simmons’ D’Leanne Lewis to be an investment, for now, for the Tamarama-based May.