Sun, sand and surf for $4.95m at Blairgowrie

A quintessential beach compound on the Mornington Peninsula has been getting 1000-plus daily online views since going on sale last week.

Close to the backbeach dunes, the five-bedroom Kirwood St house in Blairgowrie was designed in 2005 by architect Kerstin Thompson and consists of two wings — one for the children and guests and the other living areas and the master suite.

A quintessential beach compound, architecturally designed at Blairgowrie on the Mornington Peninsula, has been getting 1000-plus daily online views since going on sale last week at realestate.com.au.

There’s $4.95m hopes through Liz Jensen at Kay & Burton for the three-title 5600sq m holding set amid the Moonah trees.

Close to the backbeach dunes, the five-bedroom Kirwood St house was designed in 2005 by architect Kerstin Thompson and consists of two wings — one for the children and guests and the other living areas and the master suite.

There is a central breezeway, an indoor-outdoor room framed by sliding perforated steel doors which can be used as a veranda in warmer months or an enclosed family area in winter.

A separate pool house provides the sixth bedroom.

There’s plenty of lightweight compressed cement sheet panels plus timber cabinetry in the house, which won a 2006 RAIA Architecture award of merit.

“The beach house is essentially about ‘making do’ — you don’t design for every situation,” Thompson told the Assemble Papers website after the home’s completion, noting it was not the sort of building that sought to replicate city living.

“It’s about people’s behaviour and learning to adapt to fit the space that you’ve got and vice versa.

“For instance, kids bunking together, or how the front lawn becomes an informal gathering, camping place.”

Thompson recalls her own beach holidays where tasks like washing the dishes were entirely social.

“You’d get lost in conversation during those pursuits, time fades away … I think there’s something quite important about that,” she said.

Even the notion of a single bathroom — “negotiating who’s next for the shower is all part of the deal,” she recalled, although the Blairgowrie commission for Richmond clients comes with four bathrooms.

The Blairgowrie record was set mid-year when the uber contemporary Made Build-constructed home on Ritchie Ave sold for $4.25m, with views of both Bass Strait and Port Philip Bay. Its not far from the Knox Road home that had been the highest, having sold at $3.95m in 2016.

Australia Day holiday

There’s just the one Portsea home going under the hammer on the weekend leading into the Australia Day break, a far cry from the heyday that typically saw competing auctions held by rival agencies at the same time. The four-bedroom Elgar Grove January 23 listing comes with $1.5m hopes through Jensen.

Peninsula Sotheby’s agent Rob Curtain says the Australia Day auction weekend tradition lost its mojo years ago as the peninsula became a suburb of Melbourne.

“We now have a 52-week market and houses are selling by private auctions in days of hitting the market for record prices,” Curtain says, adding that Australia Day should be reserved for bathing boxes auctions “where there is plenty of room for the theatre”.

There aren’t even any bathing boxes for auction at Portsea, but there is one on the McCrae foreshore going to January 23 auction.

Boatshed 66, painted in coastal blue, is listed with hopes it will sell in the high $100,000s. It was listed mid-year with a $219,000 asking price.

Since taking on the listing last month, Roger McMillan agent Peter Bennett has already had an offer of $175,000 for the shed, fitted with solar power.

Beach box 43 in McCrae.

Bennett sold a bigger unrenovated bathing box, number 61 on McCrae, for $300,000.

Grant McConnell, of Belle Property, who recently sold a 26sq m renovated beach box in McCrae for $350,000 plus, has box 43 listed with a guide of between $155,000 and $170,000. Coming with hardwood flooring and fresh paint in grey and white tones, its dimensions are 1.9 metres by 2.8 metres.

“There is ample storage for your kayaks, stand up paddle boards, chairs, towels and other beach gear,” McConnell said.

At the top end, the most recent beach box sales was boatshed 37, Shelly Beach, Portsea, which sold after being listed at $350,000 through RT Edgar agent Warwick Anderson following its listing at Easter.

Fond memories

For decades the Australia Day long weekend saw not only big occasion onsite auctions of trophy homes, but also the tennis tournament and party hosted by the legendary property developer Jonathan “Jonno” Edgar.

“There was a time when anywhere you went you’d hear the pinging sound of ball on racquet,” the Kay & Burton agent Gerald Delany recalled a few years back.

It was even claimed Portsea had more tennis courts per capita than anywhere in Australia.

Edgar’s Australia Day weekend Portsea’s Battler’s Cup was an institution, with society photographer Rennie Ellis snapshots at a late 1980s event on digital files at the State Library of Victoria.

Edgar was a mate of the former prime minister and local, Harold Holt, and two decades earlier in December 1967 Edgar, then a 23-year-old estate agent, had a 4pm spearfishing session scheduled with the prime minister on the day he drowned.

One of Edgar’s former Portsea homes, Melaluna, 4020sq m on Duffy Street, was bought during the COVID-19 lockdown by cricket commentator Shane Warne for $3.6m, having been listed for the first time since 1985.

Its two blocks of land cost $7000 in the early 1970s with its north-south championship-size tennis court surrounded by Moonah trees and a sports pavilion. The four-bedroom bluestone house had sold for $375,000 some 35 years ago.

It was listed by Anthony Heffernan, the son of the late state Liberal politician turned property developer Vin Heffernan and wife Nancy.

Popular Portsea

The lack of Portsea auction activity comes at a time of heightened buyer demand at the pricey tip of the peninsula.

The record-setting $25.5m Sorrento sale — whose buyer and sale price remains a tightly held secret after its sale by Delany — has quickly and quietly seen its ripple effect. The vendors, Just Jeans co-founders Roger and Christine Kimberley, have since spent around $12m at Portsea to secure a clifftop home last sold in 1980 when bought for $267,000 by the advertising legend Peter Clemenger and his wife Joan.

The Kildrummie Court home, which was passed in at $1.3m at its 1995 Australia Day weekend auction, and then sold post-auction at $1.3m, comes with prized private jetty which locals suggest carries a $5m value.

Known as Sheldon, the house was originally called The Roost when built from local limestone in the 1870s, with the original house long swallowed up by later additions.

The prior Sorrento record sits three doors away when the Deague family, who are always in the mix when it comes record-setting property, spent $21.5m for the Guilford Bell-designed 1958 Baillieu House.

They knocked it down, with all the required paperwork from council, after its acquisition from Good Guys boss Andrew Muir, notwithstanding it was featured in the 1961 book, Best Australian Dwellings, being regarded by author architect Neil Clerehan as one of Victoria’s 10 best homes.

The Portsea record has stood at $26m since 2010 when the clifftop home Ilyuka was sold by Computershare co-founder Michele O’Halloran to businessman John Higgins. Ilyuka had also sold in 1995 at $5.15m to the Deague family whose demolition attempt was thwarted by the vigilance of near neighbour Kate Baillieu.

Cat sells

The regional media baron Antony Catalano, who is spending much of his summer with the family at Byron Bay, has offloaded his Portsea retreat.

Catalano, spotted briefly back in Melbourne at the Bar Carolina hot spot in South Yarra, had bought it with wife Stefanie from the property developer Peter Gibson in early 2019 at around $5.6m.

The five-bedroom house on 2328sq m was recently snapped up by Toorak buyers in just three days after being listed with a $6.5m price guide.

Gold Coast shines

The big auction action this month is on the Gold Coast. The annual Ray White auction, The Event, has a record 130 offerings.

“It is the most active market I’ve seen in the past 31 years,” Surfers Paradise agent Andrew Bell said.

“There is a strong belief that much of this activity has been caused by interstate buyers, but while inquiry from interstate buyers is amazingly high, actual sales are not reflecting the same results.”

Robert Graham at RW Surfers Paradise is selling one of the last beach shacks on the Main Beach strip on January 28.

Bell estimates around 26 per cent of all Gold Coast sales are going to interstate buyers.

“There is also a misconception that interstate buyers simply pay higher prices.

“While we are setting a lot of new benchmark prices, the highest proportion of those are sales to local buyers,” Bell noted.

Local agent Amir Mian is stretching his summer onsite auction with 15 onsite auctions to be held from January 16 to 23, including the mega-mansion at 26-34 Knightsbridge Parade East, Sovereign Islands, which was passed in with a $27m vendor bid when it was auctioned in October.

Robert Graham at RW Surfers Paradise is selling one of the last beach shacks on the Main Beach strip on January 28.

It’s been the Stavrou family holiday home since 1971. It is one of only three original holiday homes left along the popular apartment complex strip, the last being sold October for $7.3m.

The cottage on its 402sq m holding comes with 10.1 metre direct beach frontage.

The family spotted the cottage while on holiday.

“We placed a note under the door hoping to pique the owner’s interest,” Melpa Stravrou said.

As Mrs Stavrou’s three children, John, Anthony and Efty began to have families of their own, the grandchildren were able to enjoy the house too.

“So the place is very sentimental to us,” she said.