Life’s a beach on Victoria’s Mornington Peninsula
Melbourne’s privileged have long escaped the city for ‘the Peninsula’, and with property prices on the rise, the allure of this rich lister’s playground has never been greater.
Quaint coastal steamers of yesteryear have been replaced by private helicopters and luxury four-wheel drives for the moneyed Melburnians that have been making Victoria’s picturesque Mornington Peninsula their local getaway of choice for more than a century. Stunning views of Port Phillip Bay are juxtaposed with the magnificent wilder Portsea Back Beach on Bass Strait, at the exclusive southern tip of the peninsula.
Travel inland 20 minutes by car and the beautiful beaches are shadowed by Red Hill and Main Ridge, nestled in undulating hills that boast breathtaking views and luscious local produce. The more sparsely populated area offers another perspective and lifestyle for the rich and famous. As do nearby Flinders and Merricks on the southern side of the peninsula, for those who can afford to combine spectacular rural properties with a coastal outlook.
This story appears in the December issue of WISH Magazine, on sale Friday December 1 with The Australian.
Demographer Bernard Salt says that if you were to create the perfect weekender, sea change or tree change retreat for Melbourne’s most privileged, you would design a destination exactly like the Mornington Peninsula. “It’s about an hour and 15 minutes from Toorak to Portsea. It’s surrounded by water, with Port Phillip Bay, Bass Strait and Western Port Bay. It offers security, protection and amenity to live the lifestyle that well-to-do people want on a weekend,” he says. “In fact, it’s very similar to its Sydney counterpart, Palm Beach. That’s also a peninsula, and only an hour from the eastern suburbs.”
Salt says every Western car-based city of substance in the past 150 years has a similar lifestyle destination favoured by the upper echelons of society. “New York has the Hamptons. Paris has the Loire Valley. Queen Victoria had the Isle of Wight, off Southampton. Rich people don’t want to be confined to the city all the time. They want that option of floating between residences, and whether it’s New York, London, Paris, Sydney or Melbourne, there is a natural market for that.”
It’s not just the diversity and appeal of the landscape that has drawn wealthy Melburnians to the peninsula. There’s an evident cultural and social substance, from the clifftop mansions of Portsea to the sweeping gated sanctuaries of Red Hill and Flinders, and the boutique shopping strips bustling with elegant regulars loading gourmet groceries into their immaculate European cars.
“The fact that other people gravitate there is important, but also things such as the story of Harold Holt, for example, who died at Cheviot Beach,” says Salt. “It just added something to the mystique of the peninsula. There’s drama, there’s curiosity, there are conspiracy theories.”
A roll-call of residents reads like a who’s who of Melbourne’s business, social and celebrity elite. Transport billionaire Lindsay Fox rules the roost from his 16,000sq m Portsea clifftop compound, complete with private helipad. He’s joined by neighbours the Deague family, who claim side-by-side properties for property mogul and patriarch David and his sons William and Jonathan. Property and retail developers the Roches also enjoy a prime spot overlooking Port Phillip Bay to the Bellarine and beyond.
Billionaire Paul Little and his investment banker wife Jane Hansen, property developer Max Beck, founder of Becton Property Group, and former Spotless chairman Brian Blythe all boast opulent mansions in the exclusive enclave.
Rob Curtain, managing director at Peninsula Sotheby’s International Realty, says five years ago it was possible to score a clifftop property for under $10 million. Not so now. “$15 to $20 million for absolute waterfront is what you’re talking for Sorrento and Portsea,” he says. “The record sale was last year – Westbank [on Point Nepean Rd] sold for $30 million. That will be beaten, I would think in the next 12 months.”
Big numbers are being achieved on the other side of the peninsula in Flinders, where Yarrowee, on 60ha, was bought by Bamfa Properties managing director Adam Agosta for $26.7 million earlier this year. It surpassed Horizon, overlooking the ocean, which sold for $24.5 million in 2020.
But those sales stand to be eclipsed by the sale of Kingston Park, owned by the late investment banker and breeder David Hains. The 400-acre property comprising 18 titles in Merricks North is going to market with a sworn valuation of $60 million.
Notable names who tend to keep a lower profile on the Flinders Merricks side include billionaire businessman John Gandel and his son Tony, Chemist Warehouse owner Sam Gance, the Valmorbida family, and property developer Tim Gurner.
Chyka Keebaugh, owner of The Big Group, has a substantial home in Main Ridge and loves the seclusion of the countryside retreat. “We’re surrounded by beautiful vineyards and orchards and the best food and restaurants,” she says. “We love it because we can go there and see people, or we can shut the gates and literally hide away. It’s our little bit of heaven relatively close to Melbourne, but it feels like a million miles away. It’s funny because a lot of people in Sorrento have always thought that’s far better than where we are near Red Hill, Merricks or Flinders, but actually a lot of them are now moving to where we are because they love the isolation.”
That’s not to say the Keebaughs shy away from social connections. Keebaugh confesses that she and husband Bruce see more people in Main Ridge than they do in Melbourne. “It’s fun having so many people down there,” she says. “We see more people there than we do in Melbourne because it’s a bit more relaxed. It’s very wholesome and normal. It’s not about trying to lay out all your best crystal. It’s far more casual; it’s got a real ease to it.”
David Abela, who has a home in Merricks North and owns 3 Degrees Marketing, says while the food scene has grown exponentially in recent years, private barbecues and parties are the preferred way to socialise. “Socialising revolves around long lunches and dinner parties at friends’ houses, and us hosting the same. There’s always someone hosting something, especially over the summer, and they’re always kid-friendly gatherings, which very much suits us,” he says.
Celebrity stylist Suzy Eskander and her entrepreneur husband Alan have a beautiful weekender tucked away in Portsea. Parents to three young children, they enjoy gatherings at friend’s houses with other families, particularly during peak season. “I try to do shopping down the Sorrento strip before 10am,” Suzy says. “You get what you need for the day and you get out. We’ll get some fresh produce to have barbecues at home and do it that way rather than try to go out to any of the cafes during peak season.
“The thing about Portsea Village is you don’t have to deal with Sorrento traffic. Half of Toorak will be at Blakes Feast [gourmet prepared meals] getting their supplies. Le Capucin or Baked in Portsea both serve good coffee and avoid the crowds.”
The universal sentiment is that the food culture has been elevated with the arrival of award-winning Tedesca Osteria in 2020, luxury hotel Jackalope, and wineries including Montalto, Polperro and Point Leo Estate.
Making it onto the “locals” list for ease of booking at the most desirable restaurants during peak season is as coveted as a ticket to a Taylor Swift concert.
Model and influencer Brooke Pitt’s husband Myles’s family has owned the historic Hotel Sorrento for nearly 40 years. The distinctive sandstone building overlooking the bay is undergoing a substantial renovation. “It’s quintessential historic, beautiful Sorrento. There’s so much history there,” she says. “I can barely keep up, they’re doing that much. There are new accommodation rooms coming, a pool, a new restaurant, and an underground carpark and spa wellness centre.”
When the well-heeled want to step out to socialise, there are a number of venues on the VIP list. The Sorrento Sailing Club is regarded as the “Kooyong Club” of the coast during the warmer months. Curtain says the front-row location is the spot to see and be seen. “Even if they don’t sail, that’s the spot to be on the deck. That’s a $30 million view without having to own a clifftop home. You have the Portsea Surf Life Saving Club, which is equally beautiful but doesn’t have a pier.”
Shelley Beach is a favourite for Portsea Sorrento locals to spend a day with the kids when the heat hits. “We absolutely love it,” Suzy Eskander says. “We walk there with our trolley, the kids seated in it, and we take a picnic. You could be anywhere in the world; it’s just stunning,”
Boats are another status symbol on the peninsula, with millions of dollars of marine craft cruising the waters. “It’s a very big culture,” Curtain says. “The Portsea Sorrento set are massively into boating, because that’s what people do on a nice day on the southern end of the peninsula. Fisherman’s is the last beach before the National Park, so that will attract 100 boats. They’ll all raft up together, turn up the music and the kids swim. It’s a great party atmosphere.”
For visitors hoping to capture that luxe holiday feeling, there’s Millionaires Walk – a kilometre-long clifftop path from Sorrento to Portsea that takes in breathtaking views across the bay, to the Melbourne CBD and Mount Dandenong.
Some say it should be more accurately called Billionaires Walk, as it takes visitors past the private jetties and jaw-dropping mansions of the mega-rich.
“Millionaires Walk is a very popular spot, particularly for people who want to go and put their noses over wealthy people’s fences and see how the other half lives,” says Curtain. “Not every spot on Millionaires Walk do you get to look into people’s houses – some have chosen to have large fences you can’t see over, but plenty don’t. You’re basically walking along their beautiful, manicured lawns.”
This story appears in the December issue of WISH Magazine, on sale Friday December 1.
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