The Sell: Former UFC champ’s block has space for all the family to come out swinging
Former UFC middleweight champion Rob “The Reaper” Whittaker and his wife Sofia have purchased vacant acreage in the Southern Highlands.
NSW
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Rob “The Reaper” Whittaker, the former UFC middleweight champion, and his wife Sofia have purchased vacant acreage in the Southern Highlands.
George Kolovos of Stone Real Estate secured $1.65m for the cleared 4000sq m building block elevated on the outskirts of Bowral, near Mount Gibraltar.
It had previously been on the market for nine months in 2022-23 seeking $1.55m without approved plans and was relisted in March with $1.8m to $1.9m expectations.
It was sold with McDonald Jones approved plans for a single-level five-bedroom house with home theatre, home office plus two-car garaging.
The neighbouring subdivision blocks, all roughly the same size, were sold over the past decade with prices ranging from $1m to $1,785,000.
“I have sold this parcel to a champion bloke and a champion athlete,” George Kolovos posted on Instagram.
“Rob Whittaker and his family will soon be building their new dream here in Bowral,” Kolovos added.
Whittaker owns a number of properties, including an eight-bedroom compound at Glenmore which was purchased for $2m in 2018, along with investment properties at Tahmoor and Thurgoona.
He resides in a big extended family group – that he calls the “Village” – including he and wife Sofia and their five children, and also his younger half-brother and sister.
Whittaker once recalled to the ABC that while he “didn’t go looking for fights”, he was often provoked by other children calling him a “houso”, as someone who lived in a Housing Commission home.
“I was very insecure about being a houso, so I looked to change my identity by becoming a fighter,” he said.
He secured the UFC championship top ranking after Georges St-Pierre vacated the title in 2017.
Now ranked fifth, his next fight is scheduled against Dutchman Reinier de Ridder at UFC Abu Dhabi in late July.
Whittaker lost to Khamzat Chimaev last October, when he suffered teeth damage.
PAPANDREA PUTS NORTH BONDI IN THE SPOTLIGHT
Big Little Lies producer Bruna Papandrea and her husband, lawyer turned producer Steve Hutensky, have spent $12m on a North Bondi home.
The Los Angeles-based couple exchanged on the four-bedroom, three-bathroom Brighton Boulevard residence prior to its scheduled April Raine & Horne auction.
It's a long way from her 1970s childhood in housing commission accommodation in the working-class Adelaide suburb of Elizabeth, to be one of the most powerful Australians in Hollywood.
Set on a 373sq m parcel, their purchase was a traditional 1925 beachside precinct cottage that now has a modern two-storey rear extension.
It was marketed as Ric Serrao as “showcasing a chic coastal aesthetic, with globally sourced design elements and a select palette that is both robust yet refined”.
“This striking beachside home has been conceived as both a luxurious family sanctuary and a liveable work of art,” Serrao said.
The house features a private rear garden and parking for two cars. It last sold for $3.5m in 2013 before its renovation was designed by Joane Johnson Architects for the Rogers family.
It ranks among the recent sales spree of modern homes including two on Hastings Pde, the $10.25m sale to the Oberoi family and $17m for the Andrew Burges-designed home bought by the Findlay family.
But the Patane family’s five bedroom Hastings Pde house designed by Passer Architects and built three years ago on its 508sq m holding, has yet to sell after 100 plus days on market.
The $12m purchase by the entertainment industry couple is an upgrade of their Sydney boltholes.
They have owned in Coogee since 2019, when they bought an apartment in the then newly built Pinnacle building.
That two-bedroom ocean-view apartment, which cost $2.1m, failed to sell when scheduled for May auction with a $3.4m guide. With views over Wedding Cake Island, it is now being guided at $3.5m plus by local agent Bethwyn Richards.
The apartment was one of two Papandrea bought in the building – the other being a slightly smaller space that cost $1.71m and was sold to New York-based stylist Anna Bingemann for $2.3m in February last year.
Papandrea has worked with Nicole Kidman six times since Big Little Lies was a smash hit in 2017, four years before their Nine Perfect Strangers debut also starring Kidman. The second season of Nine Perfect Strangers was launched last month.
In March, The Last Anniversary was released on Binge, the third production by Papandrea adapting novels by the Mosman-based writer Liane Moriarty.
WHISPERS EMERGE ABOUT BUYERS OF SKINNIEST HARBOURFRONT HOME
Olympic gold-medallist swimmer Mark Kerry and his wife, interior designer Lynda, are whispered to be the mystery buyers of Sydney’s skinniest harbourfront property in Darling Point.
The property was listed with $20m hopes in January, which by its February exchange had been adjusted to $17.5m.
The four-level, four-bedroom, three-bathroom Carthona Ave home occupies 207sq m with a 6m sandy beach.
It was a right-of-way slipway for nearby flat owners when the house was built in the early 1980s by the developer Bill Shipton, who died last September, aged 85.
Melbourne accessory designer Gregory Ladner and his partner, Mark Grenville, were the vendors, having purchased it for $15.5m in 2022 from the Dicker Data co-founder Fiona Brown.
The bijou sur mer that sits between historic Carthona and Neidpath has been popular with Melburnians, with past owners including the late socialite Lady Susan Renouf.
It was Renouf’s last Sydney house, which she sold when moving back to Melbourne to be with her daughters in the mid-1990s.
Renouf sold to the Melbourne socialite Dianne Allen for $2.9m with its next owner, the acclaimed Melbourne-based landscaper Jack Merlo paying $6.15m in 2009.
Prior to that ownership run, for many years it was dormant during absentee investor Carl Spies’ ownership – other than its use by skylarking rich squatters for raves in the 1980s. The waterfront was then lavishly restored by interior stylist Barry Byrne under the generous patronage of landlady Dorothy Spry, who had paid $2.4m in 1989.
The Kerrys recently sold a four-bedroom penthouse in Double Bay to Goodman Group chief executive Greg Goodman for $20m. It had been a $15.25m off-the-plan purchase in the SJD development on Cross St.
The couple had previously owned in Darling Point, which they sold for $29.25m in mid-2023.
IS THIS CROWNING GLORY SOLD AT LAST?
US private equity giant Blackstone are understood to be hoping the prestigious 849sq m Crown One Barangaroo penthouse will be sold before the end of the financial year, perhaps even announced any day now.
The keenest buyer interest for the six-bedroom, eight-bathroom space has come from Sydney’s east, rather than any elusive buyer from China.
Its official price has sat since last August at $90m, down from the initial $100m in 2019, but the recent lowball offers have been at below $80m.
The listing agents have been told to try harder to sell the dual-level residence that spans the 81st and 82nd levels, with bespoke finishes by Meyer Davis Studio of New York.
Agents got close to a sale in 2022, but James Packer’s $72,229,573 mid-tower, two floor off the plan purchase in 2017 remains the building’s highest.
From its spacious formal spaces that boast a roaring fireplace and expansive wine wall to two professional kitchens, every detail has been meticulously crafted.
While its exterior is stunning from afar, local interior designers complain the building’s complex geometry, including a 60-degree twist and helical columns, have made decor fitouts very challenging.
The buyer will enjoy priority booking for Nobu, a’Mare, Woodcut, and Michelin-style dining at Oncore by Clare Smyth, plus room service.
Blackstone acquired Crown, which had long been associated with the Packers, for $8.9bn in 2022, resulting in a $3.3bn payday for the family.
SEA EAGLE SCORES WITH DECENT SALE
NRL Manly Sea Eagles star Tom Trbojevic has sold his Warriewood investment for $2,556,000.
Marco Cimino and Tom McKenzie of LJ Hooker got just over their recently tweaked guidance of $2.45m to $2.55m as the listing headed past 3500 page views on realestate.com.au.
The Cherry Lane four-bedroom, two-bathroom house had been on the market for two months.
It was initially priced at $2,475,000 to $2,575,000.
Set on 344sq m, the two level residence opens out to an alfresco space with a spa and landscaped yard at the rear, with a two-car garage at the front.
The home was advertised as being on offer for the first time since its 2019 build by Clarendon Homes.
It has a rear living area, adjoining the open-plan kitchen and dining space, that opens to a paved terrace and a private landscaped garden with a built-in spa.
It was seven years ago when Tom and his brother Jake bought their house and land packages, just three doors away from each other, for $964,000 in Warriewood’s Fern Creek Estate.
Tom, who is contracted to Manly to the end of 2026, listed the home as a rental in 2019, securing $1300 a week.
After 34 sales in the past year, PropTrack puts Warriewood’s median four bedroom house price at $2,405,000, up 5 per cent annually.
SET BACK AS PRICE DROPS
The price guidance for the Kensington penthouse of tennis player Nick Kyrgios has been reduced to $1.6m.
His three bedroom Anzac Pde penthouse had initial $1.8m guidance for its June 14 auction through PPD agent Tristan Oddi.
Kyrgios, who ranked fifth most marketable Australian athlete in the latest Gemba Athlete rankings, paid $1.6m in 2022, the year he came close at Wimbledon.
WAREHOUSE IN THE HOT SEAT
The 1920s Leichhardt warehouse conversion of tourism businesswoman Jie Howells has been listed by Walter Burfitt-Williams at Ray White Touma Taylor.
With 470sq m of internal space, the three bedroom, three bathroom Excelsior St offering comes with $5.5m guidance for its June 28 auction.
The Bebarfalds home furnishings factory was re-imagined in 2019 by Meryl Hare, of Hare + Klein.
CAMELOT TO CHANGE HANDS
Camelot, the mid-century modern Centennial Park home, has been listed with $10m to $11m price guidance.
It had been the Martin Rd home of the late tech entrepreneur, Andrew Findlay, who died in a freak wave boating accident off South Head in 2023, alongside art dealer Tim Klingender.
The 1967 home, designed by modernist architect Nicholas J. Munster, has been updated.
Got a property news tip? Email jonathan.chancellor@news.com.au
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