Living in a forever home: Bahar Etminan’s Potts Point apartment

Bahar knew she had to have the apartment when she first saw it.

Bahar Etminan says her art deco-style apartment must remain a home for her 6-year-old daughter. Picture: James Croucher

Sydney businesswoman Bahar Etminan says there’s a couple of upsides to living in the same street as a high-level politician — particularly if it’s Malcolm Turnbull.

“We have good around-the-clock security because the Prime Minister lives in the street and we have a police station at the top end,” says the Sydney businesswoman and cosmetic queen.

The online publisher and boss of Rescu.com.au, a premium beauty website with more than 35,000 subscribers since its 2005 launch, also adores Sydney’s Point Piper for its lack of noise, great neighbours and harbour views.

“It’s a pretty safe street; there’s no suburbia and you can hear a pin drop.”

­Etminan has embraced her new single-mother status adding that she always listened to her Iranian parents: “A man is not a financial plan, that was the best lesson my parents taught me.”

With an MBA under her belt at the age of 21 and her subsequent appointment as youngest-ever general manager for Estee Lauder brands Bobbi Brown and Origins, Etminan has won and lost a fortune during her dynamic business career. But at the height of the global financial crisis she copped debt of $960,000, partially on currency drops when she was running an importing business.

But the French-born woman has recovered and now employs four fulltime staff to run her website.

And her canny investment in an over-large three-bedroom Point Piper apartment overlooking Sydney Harbour will almost certainly pay off.

“This is my forever home. I had a visceral reaction to it (when I saw it), and I knew I had to have it.

“The apartment next door sold within 18 hours, and (high-profile real estate agent) John McGrath told me to pay full price for this one as soon as he saw it.”

Since the purchase three years ago, Etminan has spent about $200,000 rewiring and replumbing the once derelict property as well as stripping back the floor boards, staining them dark chocolate and decorating the property in her signature “deco glamorous” style.

“The apartment was derelict when I bought it and I had to make some big foundation changes,” she says.

Etminan has also restored the window timber details and frames, repainted the walls and restored the fireplace. She has redone one of the bathrooms that leads off the third bedroom, previously a maid’s quarters in the rear of the apartment, which is one of six in the art deco block built in 1929.

The maid’s quarters have been converted into Etminan’s so-called “spa room” where she has set up a ballet barre, a running machine and an Omnilux facial machine, which she goes under three days a week swearing by its anti-ageing light therapy.

“It’s my key asset,” says Etminan of the elegant art deco apartment block.

Etminan’s aim is to pay down the mortgage and then she will consider fundamental design changes such as moving the kitchen and living room areas to the front of the apartment to capture the stunning views.

Despite the elegant decor, Etminan, who has imported furniture from the US and France and hung society photos by the late American photographer Slim Aarons, says the apartment must remain a home for her 6-year-old daughter Lilly.

“It’s definitely not a showroom and there are no off-limits rooms,” she says, adding: “We don’t watch a lot of TV, we have views of Lady Martin’s Beach across the road and the marina so before and after school we go to the gardens and the parks.”