Auction wrap: $1.5m hideaway for Rino and Diana Grollo with Wanalirri buy
Rino and Diana Grollo have locked in their family holidays for Western Australia for the foreseeable future.
Rino and Diana Grollo have locked in their family holidays for Western Australia for the foreseeable future.
The couple from the Melbourne-based construction family have spent $1.5m in Broome to buy Wanalirri, a bush retreat behind the Cable Beach sand dunes.
It was sold by Susan Bradley, who is known as the queen of the Kimberley. The veteran pastoralist, who has been a member of the commonwealth government’s regional development committee for the Kimberley, owned the tropical 1.25ha estate for around 16 years.
The old pearlers-style home, along with a stand-alone yoga studio, is accessed through its Bougainvillea-framed gates and mango-lined driveway. There’s an imposing Boab tree which shades the stylishly furnished four-bedroom home complete with polished wood floors, ripple iron walls and shuttered verandas.
Bradley intends to downsize from the Bilingurr retreat, having spent 50 years in the Kimberley, mostly on isolated cattle stations.
The Grollos join other high-profile owners such as media tycoon Kerry Stokes, who bought in the early 1980s, and the Paspaley pearling family.
The Wavesong estate on Cable Beach was Broome’s priciest 2020 sale at $3.2m, when sold to Des Brooks, the Applecross-based director of the construction equipment company, Brooks Hire. The former nursery was sold by the Proctor family who had paid $685,000 in 1995.
The local roadhouse owners, the Sharpe family, bought Broome’s second-priciest offering, perched on the edge of Roebuck Bay, for $1.65m.
Selling the farm
Mayfield Farm, a 54ha holding an hour from Cairns on the outskirts of Port Douglas, has been listed for sale at $5.2m by architect Gary Hunt, who has plans of buying a luxury yacht and sailing around the world for a couple of years.
With frontage to Mowbray River and Spring Creek, Mayfield Farm is a working farm with sugarcane crops and an equestrian facility.
Its 1920s cane cutters’ cottage is sheltered by a 120-year-old mango tree.
“By day cool breezes wash across the veranda and by night, stargazing from the deck is mesmerising,” the marketing by Sotheby’s International agents Lynn Malone and Barbara Wolveridge says.
It comes with a second cottage renovated as an architect’s studio with 10 workspaces, a principal’s office, reception and boardroom. There’s a state-of-the-art communication systems to allow it to function as a global business, plus a helicopter pad and hangar.
“Morning tea includes fresh fruit from the farm,” Malone adds.
Hunt has lived and worked at Port Douglas for over four decades with his resort work including Daydream Island, Hayman Island, and Orpehus Island.
“Sailing a luxury catamaran around the Caribbean and the Pacific Ocean has been a long-held dream that I am turning into a reality,” he says.
“Cloud-based connectivity keeps me in touch with my architectural practice and our projects while experiencing an adventure of a lifetime.
“Port Douglas will remain my home port, and I’ll be on the lookout for another property.”
Canberra cleans up
Canberra was the nation’s top weekend auction capital city with a 90 per cent success rate from 50 listings, according to realestate.com.
Sydney ranked next on 87 per cent, and the nation’s top result.
A record $10.55m was secured for a triplex at South Coogee through Sotheby’s International.
Agent Michael Pallier noted there were 13 registered bidders. The oceanfront art deco 1940s building at 1 Wolseley Rd had last traded in 1989 at $776,000. It was offered by the family of Selina Corkhill, the head of investment banking at the Sydney branch of the Bank of China, and widow of architect Tony Corkhill.
South Coogee’s previous highest sale was in November last year at $9.8m for a contemporary four-level mansion which sold to Allectus Capital fund manager Duncan Saville.
Sydney’s next priciest weekend result was $6,915,000 at North Bondi. The modern Brassie St home on 440sq m last traded prior to its 2012 construction at $1.87m in 2010.
There were seven registered bidders.
Buying the bank
One of Stawell’s most imposing main street buildings has sold for $295,000 at auction.
It was the 1887 Union Bank of Australia building, designed by Melbourne architect George Inskip in a restrained late Victorian-boom classical style.
It’s a symmetrical, two-storey building characterised by a simple rectangular form having a three-bayed composition, according to the heritage report prepared for the Shire of the Northern Grampians.
The bank operated from 1837 to 1951, before its integration with the ANZ. Bendigo Bank occupied some of the space in more recent years.
Terry Monaghan,at Monaghan’s Real Estate, had two competing bidders.
It sold to a professional couple from Port Melbourne, who count on being able to relocate while retaining their work status. They anticipate residing upstairs in the four-bedroom residence, accessed via the splendid Cuban mahogany and Australian cedar staircase, while they work out what to do with the ground floor and backyard space.
The downstairs comes with vaults that held gold, currency and important documents through the decades.
Stawell seems set to renew its brewing past with the emergence of home brew premises on Main St as it embraces the tourism market.
The long-closed town brewery produced Grampians Prize Ale, Stawell Bitter Ale and Stawell Lager Ale for 27 hotels in its heyday, although some locals suggest they were all the same brew with different labels.
Cheap and cheerful
Adelaide had the nation’s cheapest weekend result.
It was the $165,000 sale of a three-bedroom semi detached home at 40 Blencowe St, Elizabeth Grove. It had last sold at $139,000 in 2012.
The median house price in Elizabeth Grove has been $227,000 over the past year, according to realestate.com.au who put Adelaide’s weekend success rate at 77 per cent.
Kind gesture
As we happen to be in the season for giving, Competing Bids notes the NSW Land Registry Services has announced a partnership with Homes for Homes.
It’s an organisation created by The Big Issue that raises funds for social and affordable housing through property donations.
NSW vendors who register their properties with Homes for Homes promise to donate 0.1 per cent of the sale price to Homes for Homes if and when they sell.
These funds are pooled and donated to social and affordable housing providers.
The NSW Land Registry Services will facilitate donations from NSW property sellers with the promised donation to be recognised by adding a caveat to the property title, says Adam Bennett, NSW Land Registry Services CEO.
Steven Persson, CEO of Homes for Homes and the Big Issue, says they envisage raising more than $1bn for social and affordable housing over the next 30 years.
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