TAMARAMA

LISA ALLEN

Artist’s impression of the view from the Kalypso apartment development in Sydney’s Tamarama

Vantage point An upmarket development in a beachside setting will boast one of Sydney’s most coveted views

Sydney-based property developer Danny Avidan is so enamoured of his proposed Tamarama residential apartment complex Kalypso he is considering retaining one of its yet-to-bebuilt apartments for himself.

“I like it so much I might keep one apartment, maybe the penthouse or a sub-penthouse,” says Avidan, a former ragtrader and boss of the clothing company The Discovery Group.

The lawyer turned fashion executive turned developer now heads the Dare Property Group, and is developing the $50 million Kalypso complex comprising apartments, sub-penthouses (with wine rooms and fireplaces) and a penthouse, overlooking Bondi Bay and the famed Bondi to Bronte Coastal Walk.

“Sydney is divided at the premium end between ocean and harbour views and proximity,” he says. “Certain types are attracted to one or the other, but in my case I am attracted to both.”

Avidan, who is married to former high-profile fashion designer Charlie Brown, is planning the development on a prominent site he bought last year at 63 Fletcher Street, Tamarama, on which there is presently an Art Deco building operating as a backpacker’s hostel.

The project is scheduled to be launched later this year. Avidan says that prices will start from around $1.7 million apiece for the three one-bedroom apartments. The four two-bedders will meet the market at around $3 million each.

There’s also one three-bedroom apartment priced at around $5 million, but Avidan says he is yet to cost the two sub-penthouses and the aforementioned penthouse.

Kalypso’s Melbourne-based interior designer Miriam Fanning (see also Interiors page 36), founder and director of Mim Design, did the interiors for a recently sold upper-level apartment at Harry Seidler’s Horizon development in Darlinghurst and the highly successful The Bower apartment development in Manly, as well as individual houses in Sydney’s eastern suburbs.

She says it was really important to create a calm yet relaxed vibe at Tamarama.

“Whenever we do designs for apartments, we see them as houses,” Fanning says, adding that she is using natural stone Italian tiles, terracotta, 100 per cent wool carpets, Carrara marble and oak wooden flooring throughout the complex.

Fanning has custom-designed louvres and window shutters, and is not giving buyers a choice of light or dark schemes.

“No, we are not giving options of colour schemes … we are going for a mid scheme,” she says, adding that 80 per cent of apartment buyers generally opt for a lighter scheme.

She says the apartment complex’s “soft curvaceousness” mimics the yet-to-be-demolished Art Deco building on the site.

Up-market Wolf and Subzero appliances are being used throughout the project while the walk-in pantries feature substantial laundries.

CBRE agent and director Ben Stewart is exclusively handling the sale of the Kalypso apartments.

He says Kalypso’s design is the highest quality that he has ever seen in Bondi and Tamarama. The site has development approval for 13 units.

Stewart expects buyers will be locals and will also hail from overseas. “It will be low key but of supreme quality,” he says.

In Melbourne, Avidan is building two office towers in Gipps Street, Collingwood, at a cost of about $25 million. Fresh from developing an apartment complex in inner city Sydney’s Foveaux Street, he is also looking at developing New York-style lofts in the city’s inner west as well as further properties in Victoria.

But when it comes to Tamarama, he is blunt: “I have developed and built some great buildings but nothing to this standard.”