The Sell: Become neighbours to Hemsworth clan – for a Byron record price
The Hemsworth clan have been drawn into the marketing hype surrounding the listing of the Byron district’s priciest retreat, Ohana. Find out how.
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The Hemsworth clan have been drawn into the marketing hype surrounding the listing of the Byron district’s priciest retreat, Ohana. Not because Chris Hemsworth and Elsa Pataky will necessarily be interested in buying the Broken Head offering, but it seems there is a cosy barnyard friendship shared between the neighbouring families.
“Sometimes their donkeys get loose,” advised the Ohana vendor Russell Staley.
“And sometimes their puppies come down and say hello,” he added.
The nine-hectare Staley offering sits between the Hemsworths’ compound and Seven Mile Beach.
The property features a Virginia Kerridge-designed series of low-set, interconnected pavilions constructed by Bellevarde for the former chairman of deepwater oil-drilling business Benthic Geotech and his wife Jennifer.
The property can sleep 28 people.
Nestled behind bush and dunes, the pavilions were apparently inspired by the Palm Springs Kaufmann Desert House designed by architect Richard Neutra in 1946.
The grounds has a resort-style pool, tennis court, basketball court and skateboard half-pipe.
The Collaroy Beach-based couple are off to Jindabyne, having commissioned Peter Stutchbury to design their next weekender.
Ohana is expected to set a new Byron region record, which is currently held by the $33.65m paid for Emma and Tom Lane’s The Range acreage in Coopers Shoot last year by a trust associated with tech entrepreneur Ben Bray. The Lanes have also recently listed another luxury ranch, Bangalow’s Copperstone, with a $37m guide.
Casbar, the $26m Suffolk Park acreage record set in 2022 by Clare Mulham, of the billionaire Nutrimetics Roche family, has recently returned to the market with undisclosed expectations.
Ohana, a former banana plantation, last traded in 2011 at $6.3m when bought from Melbourne’s Smorgon family who’d paid $5.02m in 2005. It had traded in 1983 when bought by actor Paul Hogan and his long-time colleagues, John Cornell and Allan Johnston, for $265,000.
The Hemsworths set a Broken Head record in 2014, paying $7m for a 4.2-hectare holding on the shared dirt road that leads to both properties.
BLOCK FAVS SELL THEIR BLUE BAY BEAUTY
The popular former contestants of The Block, Kyal and Kara Demmrich, have secured the sale of one of their new Long Jetty duplexes.
They secured $2.67m from buyers downsizing from acreage on the Central Coast through Carl Baker and Trevor Hamilton of McGrath Terrigal.
The three-bedroom, three-bathroom Eloora Rd dwellings were initially listed in May for June auction.
Both came with a $2.5m price guide, well above the three-bedroom $1,005,000 suburb median price calculated by PropTrack.
The sold duplex came with a wine room, one-car garage, pool and spa. There is 302sq m of internal living space on each of the 348sq m blocks.
The couple bought the 696sq m building block in 2021 for $1.31m.
It took over a year to secure development approval from the Central Coast Council.
Set 500m from Blue Bay Beach, carpenter Kyal and designer Kara filmed the construction of the side-by-side coastal homes in a series on YouTube called Bay Builds.
The remaining Eloora Rd offering has a $2.5m to $2.7m price guide.
PropTrack’s overall median house prices sits at $1,275,000, which is up 15 per cent annually.
Since coming third on the Nine Network’s series The Block: Fans v Faves in 2014, and taking home a profit of $567,250 in prize money, the celebrity renovators have been involved in dozens of projects on the Central Coast.
Their first renovation project after The Block was a four-bedroom property at Killarney Vale in 2015. It sold for $735,000, having been bought for $285,000 in 2008.
In 2018 the couple flipped a property at 82 Pacific St, Long Jetty, which fetched $1.59m, having bought the “asbestos shack” for $710,000 earlier that year.
DOUBLE BAY MANSION NETS ATLASSIAN FOUNDER $130M
The unconfirmed $130m mid-week sale of Elaine at Double Bay by billionaire Atlassian co-founder Scott Farquhar and his wife, investment banker Kim Jackson, probably triggered varied responses among the associated parties.
The mystery local buyers will be mortified that their name will be the next detail to be leaked despite their hitherto lifelong obscurity.
The neighbours, Mike Cannon-Brookes and his estranged wife Annie, will be somewhat apprehensive wondering what’s next for the neighbouring 6986sq m beachfront site with its sadly neglected 1860s residence.
And its former owner, John B. Fairfax, could well be reviewing the wisdom of his $71m sale in 2017, when he sold to end 125 years of family ownership at a discount given his desire for Elaine to be retained as a family home rather than let it fall into the hands of developers.
The Farquhar family, trading up from a large apartment in Pyrmont’s multi-tower Jackson’s Landing, never got to build their dream family home, after proposing a $37m three-storey home with a translucent curved facade. The Lazzarini Pickering Architetti plans involved an edgy proposal for a rooftop tennis court which prompted immediate concerns from the neighbours.
The striking proposal was set to replace the earlier concept plans, arising from a 1990s subdivision that included two waterfront homes directly in front of the old mansion and partially obstructing its views.
As he sought to advance the merits of his application, Farquhar even erected white sheeted scaffolding to highlight his concern about any reversion to the multi-dwelling subdivision concept.
The Farquhar family now reside at Uig Lodge in nearby hillside Point Piper, which was purchased for $130m in 2022.
Melbournites Nick Speer and Camilla Deague sat among the hastily rumoured Elaine buyers, but are deemed unlikely despite their prestige development pedigree.
AN ABODE HOUSING LOADS OF DRAMA
Never has a Sydney house with such current notoriety hit the market.
It is the Vaucluse home of Mark Chikarovski, who awaits sentencing for his admitted role in a dark web drug supply operation.
The Dalley Ave house has been listed for October 30 auction with a $14 million guide through Ray White’s Elliott Placks.
Chikarovski, who was the East Invest and Associates managing director, bought the six-bedroom house in February last year for $11.5 million with wife Hannah (who is not accused of wrongdoing) through Sotheby’s.
Then marketed as having a multi-generational floor plan, it had been offloaded by Maravillosa Properties Pty Ltd, which had paid $13.1 million in September 2022.
Beauty entrepreneur Linda Rogan, fighting midweek Federal Court bankruptcy proceedings, claimed that it was the tech billionaire Richard White who had bought the house through the shelf company for her to reside in. But she claims she was locked out after their sexual relationship was discovered by White’s girlfriend Zena Nasser.
FORDHAM’S ELIZABETH BAY RENTAL WINNER
2GB breakfast host Ben Fordham has secured a tenant at $535 per week at his longtime Elizabeth Bay investment property through Cobden Hayson.
The studio apartment in the Tara, Greenknowe Ave complex has 46sq m space.
Fordham had previously offered the studio at $390 per week in 2022.
That was the same rental as in 2020 during the Covid pandemic-impacted exodus from inner-city rentals.
PropTrack calculates the suburb’s median apartment rent currently sits at $650 a week, up 35 per cent from its $480 pandemic low.
There have been eight studio rental offerings amid the 85 apartments since July, with the studios offerings ranging between $420 and $600.
Fordham purchased the property aged 20 for $139,000 in 1997, early in his media career.
He lived in the early 1940s Moderne style complex for around five years.
“Buying that unit was one of the best calls of my life,” Fordham told The Sell.
“I saved a $15,000 deposit and asked my friend Matt Hayson from Cobden Hayson to pick a place out for me.
“I often say to Matt that it was a purchase that changed my life.
“It’s such a beautiful building.
“I hope my kids get to live in it one day when I kick them out of home.”
IT COMES FULL CIRCLE AGAIN
Constable Estate, a bold circular home within a Pokolbin vineyard, has sold having been listed with $8-8.8 million hopes through Adam Morris at the Monopole Group.
The 14ha estate has been in the hands of the Constable family since 1982, when it was acquired from the winemakers Hungerford Hill.
Its 2010 circular, four-bedroom, five-bathroom home was designed by Hunter Region architect Suters.
GREEN LIVING IS BY DESIGN
Architect Emili Fox, from Fox Johnston, and her husband, photographer Reiner Schuster, have sold their Birchgrove residence off market.
The dual-frontage, dual-occupancy home on its 260sq m site, which enjoys treetop living looking towards Mort Bay, fetched just over $8 million.
It was marketed by Adrian Oddi as one of the Balmain Peninsula’s trophy homes.
Its sustainable features make it 92 per cent off grid.
HIGHLANDS AT A LOWER PRICE
The Southern Highlands holding Mount Ashby Estate has been sold after its $15 million asking price from August last year was dropped to a guide of $10 million.
The 40ha Moss Vale offering was listed by homewares devotee Sally Beresford.
Its many tourism-style buildings include a 1921 corrugated iron structure saved from the Bowral Aldi redevelopment site.
Got a property news tip? Email jonathan.chancellor@news.com.au
Originally published as The Sell: Become neighbours to Hemsworth clan – for a Byron record price
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