Hopes rise from ashes: Collette Dinnigan looks to rebuild

Collette Dinnigan has designs on a rebuild after the summer bushfires destroyed her NSW south coast home.

Collette Dinnigan’s North Rosedale home destroyed by bushfires on New Year’s Eve Picture: Jane Dempster

The holiday home owners of Rosedale, one of Australia’s most desirable beachside settlements, are divided over whether to rebuild or sell out after the decimating summer bushfires destroyed the bulk of the community on the NSW south coast.

Real estate agent John Haslem of Elders Batemans Bay, who lost his home as a result of the New Year’s Eve fires, described the area as akin to a war zone littered with ash and tin.

But acclaimed fashion and interior designer Collette Dinnigan is one ­Rosedale home owner who has vowed to rebuild her holiday house near ­Batemans Bay that was incinerated on New Year’s Eve along with most of the rest of the houses in the idyllic NSW south coast clifftop site.

Speaking for the first time about the fire, Ms Dinnigan vowed to rebuild the cottage she bought in 2018 for $950,000.

Now based in Italy, Ms Dinnigan said she was in the process of looking for an architect to help with the Rosedale rebuild.

“We want to have designed a very modern house that will compliment the landscape,” Ms Dinnigan told The Weekend Australian. “It needs to be sustainable, and use clean energy.

“We are in the process of doing research, but to be honest we are still a little shell-shocked.”

Fashion designer Collette Dinnigan

CoreLogic records show that Ms Dinnigan bought the two-bedroom, one-bathroom cottage, which sports spectacular cliff top views, as a holiday rental through Mr Haslem. Set on 556sq m, the cottage is positioned about 15 minutes drive from ­Batemans Bay. Mr Haslem, the member for the House of Representatives seat of Canberra from 1975 to 1980, said that, except for three houses, the whole clifftop of North Rosedale had been incinerated.

Rosedale residents were divided over whether to rebuild their homes or not.

The deck of Collette Dinnigan’s home before the bushfires

“I know of some people who are going to rebuild and some people who are not going to rebuild. They will take their insurance money and either keep the block for the family to rebuild in the future or put the block on the market,” Mr Haslem said.

“Local agents say North Rosedale will be like visiting a new land sub division. There are so many houses which have burnt down.

“There will be quite a number of ­vacant blocks on view.”

However, the veteran real estate agent added that the houses where Ms Dinnigan owned on the clifftop always sold at premium prices.

“Houses on the non-clifftop side of the street usually sell for several hundred thousand dollars less and that will be the case with vacant land,” he said.

Mr Haslem said North Rosedale’s 77 properties were divided between 15 premium clifftop properties, 20 with water views and 42 properties without water views.

Of the 77 properties, 52 burnt and 25 survived. The 15 premium clifftop properties usually sell for between $1m and $1.65m. Five survived the bushfire, while 10 were burnt.

Mr Haslem said the 20 Rosedale properties with excellent water-view locations typically sold for just under $1m. Of these, just five survived and 15 burnt. The remaining 42 properties without water views usually sold for $650,000-$800,000. Of these, 15 survived and 27 burnt.

Mr Haslem said there had been no sales since the Rosedale bushfire but a water-view block was now on the market for $799,000 while a well-built cottage with water views was on the market for $1.035m.

Before the fire, Ms Dinnigan had renovated her two-bedroom Yowani Road cottage and was renting it out.

Ms Dinnigan and her hotelier husband, Bradley Cocks, have amassed a sizeable real estate portfolio south of Sydney, but recently lost money in a deal on scenic Milton through now jailed real estate agent Nicolette van Wijngaarden.

Van Wijngaarden was jailed in November for the largest trust account fraud in NSW history.