Mansion May 2021

Mansion INCORPORATING NEWS FROM DOW JONES’ M A NS ION GL OBA L

AUSTRALIA

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- PAGE INTERIORS SECTION

LORD OF THE MANOR Joh Bailey’s Highlands home 1

M A NSIONAUST R A L I A .C OM . AU

Issue 43 • May 2021

BLOOMING RICHES The boom in flowers

STARCHITECTS

Why they add value

HIGH POINT

Best streets in the top suburbs

T H E W E E K E N D AUST R A L I A N | O C T OBE R 8 - 9 , 2 0 1 6

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Contents

9 LUXURY Bass Coast estate, Hawkesbury sandstone, Sunshine Beach waterfront 1 2 C O V E R S T O R Y Escaping to the beauty of the NSW Southern Highlands 16 DOLLY LENZ

Starchitects are in big demand for luxury residential builds

18 SYDNEY PRESTIGE APARTMENTS

Affluent downsizers go for the views

2 2 P E R T H Eastern state buyers are sending prices back up in the west 2 6 M A N S I O N G L O B A L French castle, mansion in Mayfair, Scottish estate 3 0 G O L D C O A S T Buyers are after big houses and acreage on the tourist strip 3 1 G Y M S It’s out with home theatres and in with private spaces for working out 3 2 R E G I O N A L V I C T O R I A The green inland is now competing with the coast 4 3 P R E S T I G E M A R K E T U P D A T E Australia’s most sought-after addresses 4 7 B A C K P A G E At Daylesford’s Musk Farm, the AGA has pride of place 5 0 F L O R A L T R I B U T E Flowers and foliage are big news in decorating 5 4 I N T E R I O R S H O M E A period house gets a satisfying makeover 5 8 P R O D U C T S Pieces for making a bold statement in your domain

N E X T I S S U E June 12, 2021

C O V E R Celebrity hairdresser Joh Bailey at home at his Sutton Forest property in the NSW Southern Highlands, where he and his partner are developing an equestrian centre.

Photography by Nic Walker

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Birdlife at 141 Rosedale Road, Werai, NSW See story page 12

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Editor Lisa Allen Contributing editor Jonathan Chancellor Interiors editor David Meagher Art director Samantha Yates Writers Joel Robinson, Luke Slattery Sue Wallace, Libby Moffet Chief subeditor Deirdre Blayney Subeditors Paul Hunter, Sandra Killen Justine Costello Picture editor Christine Westwood Advertising Michael Thompson Tel. 61 2 9288 3630 michael.thompson2@news.com.au Unsolicited manuscripts will not be considered.

Printed by Ovato Print Pty Ltd, 31 Heathcote Road, Moorebank 2170, for the proprietor and publisher, Nationwide News Pty Limited (ACN 008 438 828), of 2 Holt Street, Surry Hills, NSW 2010 for insertion in The Weekend Australian on May 8, 2021

Editor’s letter As the residential property market continues to roar along, we investigate our most sought-after addresses, with Victoria’s Mornington Peninsula, and the Central Coast and Richmond-Tweed regions in NSW, leading the charge.

Thanks to REA Group data, we can also pinpoint the most popular streets in the most popular suburbs, with Seaview Terrace in Queensland’s Sunshine Beach, Broken Head Road at Byron Bay and Almora Street in Sydney’s blue-ribbon Mosman all getting a guernsey. There’s no doubt the luxury property market proved its resilience last year, with most premium suburbs experiencing positive median price growth.

To brighten your spirits, check out Page 50 for Libby Moffet’s special on flowers, in which she talks to two of our most celebrated florists, in Sydney and Melbourne.

In New York, Dolly Lenz – who has sold more than $US13 billion ($16.7 billion) worth of real estate – notes the popularity of and need for a “starchitect” when designing apartment towers these days.

Lenz says that given the abundance of competition and the tight real estate market, developers across the globe must do everything they can to stand out.

On that topic, our writer Sue Wallace reports that there’s greater demand for bespoke home gyms, with real estate agents and architects noticing much more chat about a home gym for family and friends to use, whereas before it was home theatres. Ray White managing director Dan White adds that he has also dealt with an increase in the number of inquiries about home gyms in blue-ribbon properties, with COVID-19 prompting many people to re-evaluate their life choices – particularly when it comes to luxury housing.

As always, we thank all our trusted agents, developers and architecture contacts for their help putting this issue together.

We hope you enjoy it.

Lisa Allen Editor THE WEEKEND AUSTRALIAN

| MAY 8-9, 2021

PIONEER BAY, VIC

A luxury estate in The Gurdies, a small village near Pioneer Bay on Victoria’s Bass Coast, has been listed for sale with a record asking price for the small coastal enclave. The 46ha estate is listed for $5 million through Colliers International Adelaide agents Duncan McCulloch and James Beer, who say the property is an unparalleled sanctuary, overlooking Western Port Bay. Currently operated as a wagyu stud by owner Frank Prainito, chairman of linen company Canningvale Australia, the estate comes with a 300sq m Bauhaus-inspired residence. It has three king-size bedrooms, a home office, a kitchen with a walk-in commercial-size cool room and a butler’s pantry. The home sits high on the acreage and is elevated to maximise the water views.

LOWER PORTLAND, NSW

HAMILTON ISLAND, QLD

Habitat, a holiday home with a stunning pool on tropical Hamilton Island, has been listed for sale by its Melbourne-based owners. Queensland Sotheby’s agent Wayne Singleton says the home is designed like no other on the island, and should sell for $5 million to $5.5 million. Recently extended and renovated, the Marina Terrace house offers views of the marina from its wet-edge pool – the focal point of the home. The pool meets the open-plan living and dining area, which in turn adjoins a Hamptons-style kitchen. There is even a balcony with a teppanyaki hotplate bar for entertaining.

All four bedrooms have ensuites, while the master also has a walk-in wardrobe and access to a private outdoor shower, surrounded by tropical gardens.

At the rear of the two-level home is a den, created out of natural rock and complete with a built-in picture frame TV and fireplace.

MAY 8-9, 2021

| THE WEEKEND AUSTRALIAN

One of the Hawkesbury district’s most coveted properties has been listed by Christie’s International agent Ken Jacobs for the first time in two decades – and with a price guide of $12-$13 million. Historic Lower Portland property Venetiaville fronts the Colo River. The sandstone home dates back to the 1890s and was built by Peter Kemp, a local and a world champion oarsman. After a fire in 1904 the house was rebuilt. In 2006, architect Timothy Moon completed an extension, while retaining Venetiaville’s original features. An open-plan living and entertaining pavilion comes complete with a fireplace, high ceilings and walls of glass looking out to the surrounding gardens. There are three bedrooms, a library, a sandstone wine cellar and an infinity pool. The 17ha grounds feature a three-bedroom guest cottage, a self-contained studio and a timber barn. The home last sold for $1.1 million in 1998.

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ST KILDA, VIC

PEARL BEACH, NSW

The penthouse in the Holly, St Kilda, contemporary apartment complex, which has some 460sq m of indoor/outdoor space, has been listed for sale. There are hopes for $3.2 million to $3.5 million through The Agency agent Jessie Raeburn for the wholefloor Wellington Street space. It comes with four bedrooms plus study and roof garden. There are home theatres in the living room and the master bedroom. It was the project of owner/developer Bec and Zig van der Sluys, who commissioned architect Tom Robertson to transform the roof of an office building in 2014. The interiors are a collaboration between Bec and Simone Haag. The dwelling’s technology included Cbus lighting, five-zoned heating/cooling with Nest thermostats, Sonos sound system with 26 speakers, 6kW solar system, alarm and camera security. The home also comes with three secure car spaces and storage.

Pearl Beach Villa, an absolute beachfront home in the small NSW Central Coast enclave, has been listed for the first time in nearly three decades. The updated home is set on 675sq m on exclusive Coral Crescent, and features walls of glass to take in the views of the Pacific Ocean, Lion Island and across Pittwater to Palm Beach. The two-storey home has four upstairs bedrooms, three with balconies.

An open fireplace takes centre stage in the living room, which features sliding doors and glass louvres to optimise the summer breeze. A courtyard includes a wood-fired pizza oven and built-in barbecue. There is a $9 million price guide through Central Coast Realty agent Stuart Gan, who has the listing along with Christie’s International. The Pearl Beach home last traded for $575,00 in 1993, three years after it was built.

BYRON BAY, NSW

A retreat at Myocum in the Byron Bay hinterland has been listed for sale. The centrepiece of the home is the open space kitchen, living and dining area, designed with floor-to-ceiling windows to take in a 180-degree view from the Koonyum Range, Mount Warning and Mount Chincogan and over the Myocum Valley to the ocean. The room opens to a covered entertaining area that leads to the 10m saltwater pool. There are three bedrooms, a purpose-built media room and an artist’s studio set on the lower level guest wing.

Ray White Byron Bay agents Brett Connable and Nick Russo are marketing the home, which sits on two titles and has approval for two houses on each title.

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THE WEEKEND AUSTRALIAN

| MAY 8-9, 2021

MULLUMBIMBY, NSW

SUNSHINE COAST, QLD

A six-bedroom Sunshine Beach home with a 22.3m beach frontage is on the market. The property at 58 Seaview Terrace, designed by Stephen Kidd, is just a few doors away from a block of land that Tom Offermann Real Estate sold last month at auction for $7.7 million. The 574sq m site last traded at $525,000 in 1994, and sits on the same street where tennis champ Pat Rafter sold his mansion for $18 million in 2018. “There is so much to love about living in a striking residence in the front row of Seaview Terrace, with nothing but the sand and sea in front,” says Tom Offermann Real Estate agent Tim McSweeney.

Number 58 comes with some 410sq m living space and light floods the home through a central atrium, highlighting the honey-hued blackbutt flooring used on both levels. Banks of white plantation shutters are featured throughout. The main living space on the second level has been positioned to face the beach – where whales and dolphins can sometimes by spotted – with huge glass doors opening to a timber deck.

Downstairs, the back garden is framed by pandanus frequented by black cockatoos.

Magnolia House, Mullumbimby, a 1930s heritage home on the banks of the Brunswick River, has been listed for sale.

It has been renovated since trading for $1.39 million in 2015 when it was the second most viewed NSW property on realestate.com.au that year. It returns to the market at $3.5 million through Gary Brazenor and Todd Buckland at Byron Shire Real Estate. The landmark four-bedroom home sits on 9915sq m on the town’s outskirts just over the Federation Bridge, some 20 minutes from Byron Bay. The all-seasons entertaining patio overlooks lush grounds with lawn, fruit trees, tropical gardens and pool. A light-filled artist studio, guest room and outdoor bathroom complete the tropical oasis. The property is rich in history, with fountains and statues dating back to its early ownership.

In the garden, there’s a 100-year-old magnolia tree, plus mango, pecan, pomegranate, olive, yuzu, orange, mandarin, macadamia, lime, grapefruit, Davidson plum and more.

YERONGA, QLD

An architect-owned, renovated and extended home in Brisbane’s leafy riverside suburb Yeronga has been listed for sale. The 1960s Hyde Road house last traded for $539,000 in 2007 when it was bought by Adam Pope, senior associate at Cottee Parker Architects, and his wife Victoria. Pope retained the original front portion of the house, which contained three bedrooms and a family room, and added a rear kitchen, living and dining extension. That space features a back wall fitted with floorto-ceiling glass taking advantage of its leafy outlook. Ray White Alderley agent Janine McDonald has a May 15 auction. Hyde Road’s top sale was secured late last year when a home a few doors down sold off market for nearly $2 million. Yeronga has a median house price of $1.08 million based on 67 sales over the past 12 months, according to realestate.com.au.

MAY 8-9, 2021

| THE WEEKEND AUSTRALIAN

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Long a magnet for Sydneysiders hankering after the peace and quiet of rural living, the NSW Southern Highlands has morphed into a savvy little real estate earner if you can pick the right locale. In fact, most of the bucolic Highlands have achieved strong price growth over the past year, as families and downsizers head out of town in response to the pandemic.

Celebrity hairdresser and horse breeder Joh Bailey, who has tended to the locks of the late Princess Diana, as well as Miranda Kerr and Linda Evangelista, has been trading up in the Southern Highlands over the past decade or so.

Beginning with a humble 2ha holding at Picton, around 93km from Sydney, he rapidly progressed to a lavish 12ha spread near Berrima, which he sold recently to purchase 24ha at Sutton Forest. It is here that Bailey and his partner, champion horseman Michael Christie, are developing an equestrian centre along with a $1 million-plus four-bedroom and four-bathroom multi-level house in the Ralph Lauren and Hamptons style.

Work will start any day on the house positioned on the high point of the estate, overlooking the fields, orchards and horses, 12

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with a mountain range in the distance. The pair paid a savvy $1.225 million for the holding, which has since been renamed Wideacre, after one of Bailey’s favourite historical novels. “We bought this because land values are going up,” he says.

Just off Canyonleigh Road, and reached via a long private drive, the holding was once a religious estate.

It had been badly neglected with the weed-infested land was strewn with old fridges, disused washing machines and empty bathtubs. Added to that, Bailey has just been advised by three architects that a quaint 1870-cottage in the centre of the estate is beyond repair.

“Basically the whole place was an absolute dump – no one had lived here for years – which is why we got it for that [cheap] price,” he confides. “I said to Mike, I am not going there unless we make it presentable. It was Michael’s idea, I was horrified. But now I am here the work has unravelled really quickly.

“We have been here seven months and I love it and I can see the potential. At first I could not see the potential. I could not see past the mess.”

The couple spent months cleaning up the estate, aided by plenty of winter bonfires as well as outside help.

Since they relocated to Wideacre seven months ago, they have built a five-bay stables imported from the United States to accommodate some of their 20 or so Arab horses.

A championship outdoor Olympic-sized dressage area, surrounded by 50 ornamental pear trees, where Christie gives riding lessons to locals is the centrepiece of Wideacre at present.

Plans are advanced for a weanling barn and Bailey confides that they have forked out $185,000 on fencing and it is “nowhere near finished’’.

Orchards full of figs and pomegranates, as well as stands of olive trees and grapevines, are well advanced, and the pair have invested heavily in mature trees and border hedges. One of Bailey’s favourite trees is a 100-year-old pine.

He says Wideacre is their last home, but in the same breath he retracts that statement with a grin.

“We always say it’s our forever home but it never is.”

Bailey spends five nights a week at Wideacre, which is just THE WEEKEND AUSTRALIAN

| MAY 8-9, 2021

COUNTRY PRACTICE

Celebrity hairdresser Joh Bailey is among those who have escaped to the NSW Southern Highlands and he couldn’t be happier S t o r y b y L I S A A L L E N P h o t o g r a p h y b y N IC WA L K E R

Joh Bailey, right, and his partner Michael Christie’s temporary living room on their 24ha property Wideacre in Sutton Forest has been lavishly decorated in their trademark ‘American classical’ style

MAY 8-9, 2021

| THE WEEKEND AUSTRALIAN

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Right: 141 Rosedale Road, Werai, has a price tag of $4.5 million for the 20ha property; Below: 150 Cornwall Road, Exeter, on 2.2ha is on the market for $3.5 million

Powering ahead Bowral

Burradoo

Canyonleigh

Sutton Forest

31/1/2016

$779,340

$1,040,559

$779,385

$968,252

31/1/2017

$955,096

$1,268,746

$1,305,775

$1,283,898

31/1/2018

$1,016,612

$1,292,073

$1,425,833

$1,182,513

31/1/2019

$998,200

$1,343,512

$1,301,779

$1,358,014

31/1/2020

$1,031,063

$1,308,248

$1,245,691

$1,187,120

31/1/2021

$1,179,569

$1,757,344

$1,382,723

$1,838,782

Median house valuation for selected suburbs. Source: CoreLogic

20 minutes away from his popular Bowral hairdressing salon, and the remainder of his time is spent at Woolloomooloo Finger Wharf, closer to his Bondi Junction and Double Bay salons.

For now the pair have converted an existing barn (once a prayer centre) into their living quarters. Bailey says it may serve as an excellent bed and breakfast once they have completed construction of their Ralph Lauren-style mansion.

Their temporary living room has been lavishly decorated, and is replete with stone busts and urns as well as fireplaces in their trademark “American classical” style.

Outside, they plan to enlarge one of Wideacre’s three dams into an ornamental lake similar to the sizeable one they established at their former Berrima holding.

They hope the mansion will be completed by the end of the year, but Bailey confesses that construction time and prices are usually double what is expected.

Located 110km from Sydney, the Southern Highlands encompasses a wealth of village-type townships, from Bowral to Colo Vale in the north, down to Bundanoon and Wingello to the south.

Bailey says there are no traffic lights between Sutton Forest and William Street in Sydney’s CBD and on a good day it can take him just 90 minutes to drive home from Sydney.

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But there’s no such luck on a Friday night when it can take a good three hours to get home, given the competition on the Hume Highway from Sydneysiders heading to the Southern Highlands or the ski fields of Thredbo and Perisher, or to Canberra for a weekend.

Southern Highlands agent McGrath Bowral’s Anne Stone says while buyers are querying rising prices, the pristine region south is still attracting loads of purchasers, predominantly from Sydney’s inner west and lower north shore.

“But we are not getting the traditional hordes of buyers from Canberra,” she says, adding that Southern Highlands buyers often hail from the bush capital.

“There’s a bit of quibbling about prices; a lot of buyers are saying they are waiting until the heat is off the market, for it to settle a bit,’’ Stone says, adding that in the lead-up to winter there is a bit more stock on the market than there traditionally has been.

“The Southern Highlands is still powering ahead … but some of our residents are moving further down the south coast, while some are moving back to Sydney.

“But that’s our mature population heading back to the city, mainly for health reasons.”

Price-wise, some parts of the Southern Highlands are

performing better than others, and Sutton Forest is a standout.

The Southern Highlands village, the site of one of the first colonial settlements in NSW, outpaced the better-known Bowral and Burrado to garner one of the area’s highest median residential house price increases over the past five years.

Sutton Forest’s median house prices jumped 90 per cent between 2016 and 2021, according to CoreLogic’s head of research, Eliza Owen. Its median house price increased from $968,252 in 2016 to $1.839 million in 2021, followed by Canyonleigh with a 77.4 per cent price increase from $779,385 in January 2016.

The upmarket Burradoo saw prices jump 69 per cent from $1.04 million in 2016, while Bowral sustained a 51.4 per cent increase, up from $779,340 five years ago to $1.179 million in 2021.

All of these areas have had really strong growth and even more so recently, as there has been a fairly broad-based upswing across most of the Southern Highlands region, Owen says. He adds that due to COVID there has been a big upswing in younger purchasers and renters moving to rural areas.

“COVID has prompted younger people to move to the regions of NSW and Victoria,” she says. “It’s created demand from higher-end tree changers and a concentration in demand over the past 12 months or so.

“With the 25- to 44-year-old cohort there was an uplift in demand for the Southern Highlands from the 2019 September quarter to the September 2020 quarter by about 400 people.”

Anecdotally, a lot of people are looking to escape to the regions in the wake of the pandemic, wanting to get away from the cities.

“Fewer people departed regional Australia as well, so stock on the market has been relatively tight and that has exacerbated prices,” Owen says.

A CoreLogic analysis of the price growth in 334 regions ranked the Southern Highlands as number 23 due to its annual price growth of around 17 per cent over the year.

Further north, Queensland’s Noosa hinterland ranked first, with a 23 per cent price increase over the same time frame.

Meanwhile, McGrath Bowral agent Anne Stone is expecting around $4.5 million for a 20ha property at 141 Rosedale Road, Werai. The vendors are downsizing. “It just comes that time when people have to move,” Stone, who is selling the property via private treaty, says.

“Every room of that house has a view, the area where [the owner] has the vegetable gardens attracts all the birds – you could sit there all day and look out the window.”

The property is running a herd of cattle at present.

Just off the village of Exeter, Stone has put a price of $3.5 million on 150 Cornwall Road, which sports a conifer-lined entrance and pebbled circular driveway.

The four-bedroom house on 2.2ha features external recycled convict bricks and a huge Victorian-style conservatory. Nestled on manicured gardens, Exeter House includes a thriving enclosed orchard, a large freestanding shed and an enclosed vegetable garden. There is also a dam. The long-term owners are looking to downsize within the Southern Highlands.

THE WEEKEND AUSTRALIAN

| MAY 8-9, 2021

Dolly Lenz

Local aspect

WITH JENNY LENZ

KAY & BURTON PROJECTS

Damon Krongold Melbourne luxury apartment buyers are a sophisticated, welltravelled, conservative and multicultural demographic. Years spent travelling the world for business and/or pleasure, staying in hotels or apartments, and visiting public buildings designed by internationally renowned architects with bespoke interiors have had a massive impact on the desire for similar experiences back home when choosing a luxury apartment.

There is an attraction to replicating “feelgood” and unique experiences, and quality in one’s home environment. As a result, purchasers are drawn to big-name architects with international pedigrees and success or tenure overseas, or who locally demonstrate a consistency to articulate a particular flair or elegance in their designs that becomes their signature over time. International architects include Frank Gehry, Frank Lloyd Wright and Zaha Hadid, and locally they include Robin Boyd, Harry Seidler, Phillip Cox, Glenn Murcutt and John Wardle. On occasion local developers will seek to engage international “starchitects”. Melbourne luxury apartment buyers are most at home with local architecture, interiors and gardens. Melbourne purchasers tend to conservatism when choosing their design team. Names such as Powell and Glenn, Carr Design, Rob Mills, SJB, Mim Design, David Hicks, Paul Bangay and Jack Merlo are synonymous with quality, timeless design and execution throughout Melbourne’s inner metropolitan and bayside luxury suburbs. .

BRESICWHITNEY

Romany Brooks

The luxurious Four Seasons Hotel New York in Midtown Manhattan, designed by architects I.M. Pei and Frank Williams POINT OF DIFFERENCE

Starchitects rising Many elements go into the planning of a luxury apartment complex, but few are as important as design and architecture. The age-old adage that first impressions are everything rings true when it comes to the exterior architecture of luxury real estate as it is the first thing anyone sees. A compelling design can pique the interest of a buyer and, in a crowded market, separate a building from the rest. With such an emphasis on design and architecture, it’s no wonder the popularity and importance of starchitects among developers and buyers has skyrocketed, and it will remain an essential component of the luxury real estate market for years to come.

With abundant competition and tight real estate markets across the globe, a developer must do everything they can to stand out.

Savvy developers are turning to the biggest names in architecture to design unique buildings that will capture the interest of the ultra-high-net-worth consumer. Many architects who were exclusively designing some of the world’s most important cultural and commercial structures are now being lured into the residential market by developers who believe their name recognition and worldwide pedigree will translate into residential sales. New York is a perfect example, as the highest recent sales have been in buildings designed by starchitects such as Robert A.M. Stern, Jean Nouvel & Norman Foster. A starchitect can be the differentiator that helps turn a regular project into a resounding success.

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Developers are not alone in their affinity for the work of the world’s top architects. Luxury real estate buyers are equally enamoured of the chance to buy in a complex with significant architectural provenance. Throughout the buying process they are likely to come across a wide variety of offerings, ranging from old pre-war buildings to new glass towers. Most of these properties can be classified as just housing: four walls and a roof but nothing genuinely spectacular. With a starchitect-designed building, buyers are not only getting a habitable art piece but also a true real estate trophy for which they are willing to pay a premium. Any premium is justifiable for, in their minds, having a well-known name permanently attached to the building means it will always be associated with the highest standards of design and quality.

While there are plenty of opportunities in today’s market, not all are created equal. Buyers and developers can buy an average apartment or build a mundane project, but if they are looking for a true real estate trophy, they’ll find it hard to resist the allure of boundary-pushing starchitects and their extraordinary works.

Dolly Lenz heads up New York-based Dolly Lenz Real Estate and has sold well over $US13 billion worth of luxury US and international homes. Jenny Lenz is managing director of Dolly Lenz Real Estate. dollylenz.com

Buyers love the promise of luxury. In a developer-driven market such as Sydney, a renowned architect gives the buyer confidence in the quality of the build, finishes and overarching aesthetic. With fierce competition in the apartment sector, it’s critical that the project is original and has a point of difference to allow it to sell. The cachet of a star architect can bring press, public interest and hopefully design excellence. Time and time again we’ve seen that an investment in great design gives a development the best chance of creating a remarkable outcome for both the quality of the built environment and the possible sale price. I’ve had the pleasure of working with the landscape architect Patrick Blanc on an international resort, and can confirm his “star” quality has affected the property’s appeal and the prices achieved. Locally, the late Harry Seidler is still a star. His work is still sought after and a premium can be expected for apartments designed by him. His award-winning Ithaca Gardens apartment complex, designed in the 1960s, is always in demand from Seidler fans. My recent sale in the building was to a New York investor who outbid many design aficionados. Love him or hate him, Seidler still sells well.

LJ HOOKER DOUBLE BAY

Bill Malouf

As the No.1 capital city in Australia, Sydney has prestige landmarks such as the Opera House and the Sydney Harbour Bridge, and the best harbour waterways in the world. It is no surprise it has attracted the likes of Renzo Piano and WilkinsonEyre for landmark apartment projects that now sit on the city skyline. Their names are like a stamp of excellence as to the quality and uniqueness of the property. It can also be local architects who shine. That is certainly the case in the listing of the apartment atop the ANZ tower designed by Richard Francis Jones with interiors by Blainey North.

Buyers find the attention to detail and the uniqueness of the styles created alluring, along with the sense of space and flow.

THE WEEKEND AUSTRALIAN

| MAY 8-9, 2021

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“Nyrambla” 1885

Grand Estate in the Heart of Ascot on 2,608m2 21 Henry Street, Ascot QLD

Auction

29th May at 11am on-site (if not sold prior)

View Saturday 12.00pm - 12.45pm Wednesday 6.00pm - 6.45pm

Rachael Spinks 0411 10 10 15 rachael@spinksco.com.au www.spinksco.com.au

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“Nyrambla”, one of Brisbane’s grand Victorian residences, presides over 2,608sqm of private grounds in the heart of Ascot. Magnificently renovated with no expense spared, “Nyrambla” brings together the elegance of a more gracious time with the luxuries of contemporary living.

• • • • • • • •

Prime Ascot position with elevated aspect, level lawn, pool Bay breezes and sweeping views to Moreton Island Magnificent renovation with no expense spared 4.2 metre high ceilings, 6 fireplaces, 3 kitchens Solid brick construction, bay windows, French doors Extensive, self-contained guest wing Walk to Ascot State School and St Margaret’s Anglican Girls’ School Approx. 10 mins drive to city

Dwight Ferguson 0412 385 720 dwight.ferguson@raywhite.com www.raywhiteascot.com.au

T Sydney prestige J ONAT H A N C H A NC E L L OR

Towers of strength

The luxury CBD apartment market is on the rise, with affluent downsizers spending up big on views to sigh for

This year has possibly been the busiest year ever for the prestige apartment market in the Sydney CBD, with numerous new luxury projects scheduled for settlement.

Residents have started to move into Crown’s harbourfront One Barangaroo, and in the middle of the city occupancy is well under way at Sydney’s tallest apartment building, Greenland Tower, on Bathurst Street.

Settlement is imminent for off-the-plan buyers in Loftus Lane, developed by AMP Capital, and Opera Residences on Circular Quay, developed by Landream and Macrolink. And after a bad water leak, the 104 units in the King & Phillip building will be settled mid-year. Castle Residences and The Harrington Collection will see settlements later this year too. Lend Lease’s $140 million One Sydney Harbour sale doesn’t settle until 2023.

Settlements across the new batch of these luxury apartments will see a price reveal ranging up to the $60 million mark. Several price-per-square-metre records were set. And CBRE’s Ben Stewart, who handled the off-the-plan sales sell-out for Loftus Lane and Opera Residences, says there has been good uplift in both developments since they were sold.

A Loftus Lane apartment sold for $6.5 million in 2017 has onsold at $7.3 million, while a resale in the Opera Residences achieved a price per square metre of $87,000 plus. In 2016 the Opera apartments averaged $60,000 per square metre, which set a record when the project sold out in just two hours – 95 per cent were snapped up by local buyers. At the time, the buyers’ agent Stuart Jones suggested the pricing was akin to New York’s Manhattan and London’s Knightsbridge.

Ben Stewart notes that the current market continues to see a strong appetite for high-quality developments in prime positions, “and in particular in the $10 millionplus market, with owner-occupiers having experienced such an uplift with their homes in the past 10 to 15 years”.

Stewart says there is minimal supply in the CBD, as he prepares to launch the apartments in the redevelopment of Sirius in The Rocks.

“There was a lot of uncertainty last year during the global pandemic. However, basically from September onwards, confidence started to be restored and buyers started to show activity,” he says.

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This month also sees the launch of the sales marketing for 111 Castlereagh through Colliers Residential. The apartments are due to be completed by mid2023. The luxury mixed-use development by Cbus will see 101 apartments designed by fjmt studio in a re-visioning of one of Sydney’s great 1930s department stores.

The aim is a luxury retail precinct, plus creative workspaces, and beautiful contemporary residences above the heritage-listed David Jones store, completed at the corner of Market and Castlereagh Streets in 1938, an era when CBD high-rise residential was very much at a premium.

Longtime Christie’s International agent Ken Jacobs appraises the Sydney CBD as the only location that can offer such an impressive choice for Sydney’s most affluent downsizers. “An extraordinary situation has arisen where buyers, mainly downsizers with budgets well in excess of $15 million, cannot find suitable new luxury apartment options in the east and north, so are funnelled into the CBD,” Jacobs says. “These buyers are coming from overseas as well as family homes in prime eastern and northern suburbs.”

Jacobs, who has the stand-alone $66 million ANZ Tower penthouse listing in conjunction with Bill Malouf, says the city still offers developers the option of buying and demolishing single-owner commercial buildings to build new apartments, whereas harbourside suburbs are much more challenging due to the lack of suitable locations.

“The two issues in redeveloping such sites are the requirement to negotiate with multiple owners to agree to sell, and the combined value of the existing apartments is usually considerably higher than the underlying land value, which creates an unviable option.”

The penthouse offering was designed for the property developer John Boyd and his wife Marly. The rare penthouse, atop the commercial tower designed by Richard Francis-Jones, spans 2400sq m, with interiors by Blainey North. It has four bedrooms, a wine cellar and a marble kitchen, and a private rooftop level features a cabana lounge and pool. It has point blank views of Sydney Tower.

The current population of Sydney’s CBD is 20,050, plus 3300 in The Rocks and 9000 in Chinatown. The 30,000-plus total is small compared with the 4.9 million THE WEEKEND AUSTRALIAN

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Clockwise from main picture: One Sydney Harbour; One Barangaroo Crown Residences, and interior; Sirius, The Rocks

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Left: Penthouse atop the ANZ Tower, with view from the rooftop and interior shots. Below: Pool and view from 111 Castlereagh Street.

metropolitan population. But the CBD occupancy could gain momentum as planning authorities seek ways to pivot towards more residential given the emptying of office blocks during the pandemic.

Knight Frank residential agent Adam Ross says luxury CBD buyers are looking for such features as large master suites, large living areas, good ceiling heights, great views and a high level of finish.

“Sydney has gone through an incredible change in the off-the-plan luxury space for CBD apartments,” Ross notes.

“For a long time prices averaged around the $20,000 to $30,000 per square metre range, but in recent times we have seen a monumental leap from those price points to $45,000 per square metre to $80,000 per square metre … in the blink of an eye.”

Ross puts the surge down to lifestyle and building amenity, which has changed substantially and quickly in Sydney. “Right now it’s almost a case of ‘name your price’, within reason,” he says. He suggests older prime apartments are seeing a surge because on paper they look like better value, while noting that the frenzied market conditions often result in prices per square metre similar to those of new stock.

“More established projects are again even more sought after,” he says. “Areas like Walsh Bay are seeing a major resurgence as they are perceived to be grossly undervalued given the prices being achieved in neighbouring communities.”

Savills valuer Jonathan Randall says the latest crop of luxury apartments has helped prices grow in older developments, as buyers see good value, they often provide larger internal areas and they can be occupied immediately.

“Older buildings also have a track record in terms of build quality and on-site management, compared to a new project where a buyer is heavily reliant on the reputation of the developer, architect and builder on which to base their decision to purchase,” he says.

Savills agent Martin Schiller says recent resale data is limited but 20

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anecdotal evidence suggests that some price growth has been achieved in some projects, although significant rental reductions, plus an exodus of investors and a flight to homes outside of Sydney, has affected buyer demand in this sector.

“Confidence levels have now returned to the Sydney CBD,” he says.

Latest developments such as The Opera Residences, Crown and the forthcoming One Sydney Harbour will create their own market, Ray White Residential CBD agent Michael Lowdon suggests. “I suspect that buyers are cashed up with no reliance on finance,” he says. And sellers will be able to hold out for their price.

Lowdon does see some pressure at Greenland Centre, at 115 Bathurst Street, which was sold in 2013. “Everything sold off-plan relatively quickly, and CBRE has since reached out to a wider network of traditional resale agents with Asian networks.” Lowdon says there were 30-plus agents’ open for inspection signs outside the building until recently, when they were discouraged by building management. “All buyers have paid premium prices,” he says.

Lowdon suggests that when new developments are completed, typically between 20 per cent and 40 per cent may be available for sale and “generally this takes up to four years to work through the system”.

Sellers often enter into a cycle of trying to sell and if the sale doesn’t happen falling back into the rental market and then repeating until sold.

Adrian Wilson at Ayre Real Estate affirms the changed priorities of buyers over the past year as they are looking for more space.

He notes a surge in buyer desire for prestige three-bedroom apartments, which he doesn’t believe will dissipate anytime soon.

Wilson anticipates a turnover of around 10 per cent to 20 per cent in the new high rises within the first year.

“The case with city buildings is that every building is its own micromarket, and so over time each building tends to form its own marketplace,” he says.

THE WEEKEND AUSTRALIAN

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Perth

Top row: 20 Blackwall Reach Parade, Bicton Bottom row: 20 Hurdles Drive, Floreat

J ONAT H A N C H A NC E L L OR

West side story Confidence grows in Perth’s prestige market A surge in interest from eastern state buyers has seen Perth’s prestige house market achieve long overdue price rises.

Longstanding unsold stock is now selling as the market has begun to catch up. Olivia Porteous from William Porteous Properties International says price increases across the Perth market started at the lower end last September and since then has seen renewed price confidence for homes above $4 million.

She pinpoints beachside Cottesloe as a favourite for buyers from the east – the suburb has seen values grow 5 per cent in the first quarter of 2021. The median house price sits close to $2.2 million, according to realestate.com.au.

Based on five years of sales, Cottesloe has seen a compound growth rate of 4 per cent for houses. There were 14 house sales over $2 million in the first quarter this year, around double the number in the same period in 2020, according to CoreLogic. “For eastern state buyers it still provides good value compared to the premium beach suburbs over east,” Porteous says.

Earlier this year Mack Hall secured the $2.95 million sale of a three-bedroom federation home in Cottesloe in 67 days, as Perth experienced a near halving of the number of days on market, according to CoreLogic. Recently he has found buyers in Cottesloe in just 23 days and 14 days respectively.

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There was a surprising spike of international buying between September and December, Porteous notes, although she suggests that 2021 has seen local buyers put on edge due to missing out on good properties so they’re now increasing their spend budgets.

Ray White Dalkeith Claremont principal Vivien Yap says the additional competition from overseas and interstate buyers is often at work at the top end of the market, with a number of recent high-level sales to international and interstate buyers.

Ray White Cottesloe Mosman Park principal Jody Fewster recently secured a near $5 million sale of a riverfront property in Mosman Park to a buyer from London.

In February Porteous sold a modernist home carved into the cliffside in Bicton, across the Swan River from Mosman Park, for $7.2 million. It had been listed in March 2020 when COVID locked down Australia. The custom-built four-bedroom home, which features a lift to connect to all four levels, was bought by a local investment banker. Bacic Group built the home using an insulated concrete formwork. The 16m cantilevered facade incorporates frameless glass walls across the main living area and upper master level to take advantage of the water views.

Away from the water, Porteous sold a Floreat home in February for $3 million, just days in to its campaign. Designed by

Philippa Mowbray Architects, the modern home on Hurdles Drive has four bedrooms, three bathrooms and a pool on 680sq m.

Fewster says with Perth’s rental vacancies at around 1 per cent, people are increasingly buying to live in an area they want. She notes that the lack of supply is driving up prices.

“Listing volumes are at historic lows and house sales in the March quarter are 29 per cent above the decade average,” Fewster says. “Although the March quarter saw a 5 per cent rise in prices, our values are still at August 2006 levels. We are 14.2 per cent below our June 2014 peak and Perth is now seen as affordable compared to other larger capitals.”

CoreLogic’s Tim Lawless told an industry briefing late last month that Perth was a sellers’ market. “Perth is generally considered to be in a solid and broad-based upswing,” he said.

The timing of the recovery has been credited to the reemergence of the mining boom and a lack of trades for residential building. Yap suggests the mining sector has always had a large influence on the Perth real estate market. “I would expect it to be a factor in more than 50 per cent of recent sales,” she says.

She says there is strong evidence that Perth’s prestige market is bouncing back with the average sale price rising from $2 million to $2.5 million, and there is still more growth to come.

THE WEEKEND AUSTRALIAN

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Mayfair mansion

French castle This magnificent limestone castle, built in the 15th century, offers nearly 100 acres of wooded land and 2km of frontage on the River Aven in southern Brittany, and is on the market for €31.5 million ($45 million).

“The current owner acquired the chateau in 2000, when he fell in love with the place,” says listing agent David Bilder. “It was entirely in ruins, partly in the open air, without a roof.”

The owner spent nearly 20 years rebuilding and restoring the castle, Bilder says. It took about seven years to dismantle and rebuild the structure, stone by stone, with a crew of seven stonemasons permanently on site.

They even created a granite quarry on the property to acquire new stone.

Original parts of the property include a chapel, a monk’s tower, a polygonal tower known as the belfry, and a monumental granite staircase, the agent says.

He praises the restoration’s “successful blend of old and contemporary comfort”.

Modern touches include geothermal underfloor heating, home automation and video surveillance.

There is also a new open-air glass roof that illuminates the entry foyer in the main tower of the castle, which links the 15th-century element to the 18th-century structure by a glass and wrought-iron canopy.

The main level of the castle features several reception rooms with fireplaces and large windows overlooking the river and the private parkland. The 1100sq m castle has eight bedrooms, eight full bathrooms and two partial bathrooms.

Amenities include eight fireplaces, a natural granite swimming pool and several themed gardens, including a Zen-like Japanese garden.

BILL CARY

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A historic London mansion that’s about half the size of Westminster Abbey has hit the market for £35 million ($63 million).

Located in Mayfair, it is the largest mansion on the market in the city’s upmarket neighbourhood. The Georgian property, completed in 1749, has a Grade II historical listing and has been home to the Naval Club, an exclusive members-only venue, since 1946, according to the listing agencies Wetherell and Gerald Eve. It is also one of few freehold properties in Mayfair, according to Peter Wetherell, founder and chairman of Wetherell.

“It is extremely rare in Mayfair to have the opportunity to purchase the freehold of an entire mansion building of this size which is still configured as a vast single property,” he says.

“If remodelled into a super-prime mansion, 38 Hill Street would be one of the most valuable, largest and prestigious private homes in Mayfair.”

There’s space for 16 bedrooms and two floors of reception rooms. There are six floors in total.

The property is located on a wide and deep plot, and also “lends itself to a range of potential commercial or hospitality uses”, says Lloyd Davies, a partner at Gerald Eve. Designed by architect Benjamin Timbrell, the mansion was originally built for wealthy landowner Lord Berkeley. John Pitt, the second Earl of Chatham, and brother of Prime Minister William Pitt the Younger, was an early resident.

In 1905 a Portland stone porch was added, as well as an entrance hall with a circular staircase and Louis XVI-style drawing room.

VL HENDRICKSON

Scottish estate A 7.3ha estate on Scotland’s west coast that was a former training ground for the British army was listed last week for £2.25 million ($4 million), according to Savills. The main house dates from 1864, and is the only building in Scotland designed

by Philip Webb, the father of the Arts and Crafts Movement. It was designed as a hunting lodge and rebuilt in the 1930s after a fire. In 1941, the British army requisitioned the estate to train an elite group of officers, the secret Special Operations Executive, before World War II. The property features expansive lawns that extend to the sea, a private jetty, outbuildings, tennis court, woodlands and gardens. There are 38 bedrooms. “One of the most significant and handsome Highland country houses to come onto the market in recent years … the house and estate would lend themselves perfectly to exclusive weekend/vacation use or as an events venue,” says listing agent Cameron Ewer of Savills. The main home, known as Arisaig House, was run as a boutique hotel until early 2019, and the outbuildings have been vacation rentals. The updated Orchard House has five bedrooms and water views. The main house has 12 bedroom suites and four separate apartments. It has a carved oak staircase, billiard room, and Art Deco- and Art Nouveaudetails, including plaster and woodwork, William Morris wallpaper and an Italian vaulted ceiling in the drawing room.

Both the house and grounds are listed by Historic Environment Scotland. There is a walled garden, a rose garden, and mature trees. The property last sold for just under £2 million in 2010.

VL HENDRICKSON

THE WEEKEND AUSTRALIAN

| MAY 8-9, 2021

Rural A Secluded 156* Acre Evolutionary Botanical Estate ‘Eaglemont Estate’, Springbrook, Gold Coast Hinterland, Queensland • Carved into the heart of Springbrook and centred around a private ancient Gondwana rainforest • Secluded 63.17ha* where perfumes and colours change throughout all 4 climatic seasons • Thousands of camellias and magnolias intersperse rows of 5,000 ash trees, silky oaks and liquid ambers bounded by soaring pines. Lakes, flowing tributaries and commercial capacity water bores • The ‘Eaglemont Estate’ comprises 13.5%* of Springbrook’s cleared productive mesa • An amazing abundance of birdlife and wildlife for you to interact with in their environment • A vision of self sustainable lifestyle that shelters you from an unsuspecting outside world

raywhiteruralqld.com.au

For Sale Peter Douglas 0407 172 101 Rob Wildermuth 0428 222 687 Ray White Rural Queensland

*approx.

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Gold Coast

Top: 327 Chesterfield Drive, Bonogin Below: 14 Maryland Avenue, Carrara

J ONAT H A N C H A NC E L L OR

Hinterland worth its weight in gold Big houses and acreage properties are in demand on the Queensland tourist strip 30

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The Gold Coast property boom is as evident in luxury home sales as it is in apartments, says veteran agent Andrew Bell.

“In fact, houses have been more hotly sought after,” says Bell, who heads the Ray White Surfers Paradise network. He adds that while the apartment market is strong, with local downsizers and interstate migration, the housing market is driven by the same buyers. “It is in the housing market that we see the greatest shortage of stock,” Bell says. “There is huge demand from young local couples looking to either get into their first home or to move from an apartment to a house.”

It comes against the background of realestate.com.au calculating locations where there has been an 80 per cent increase in buyer activity versus a 32 per cent decrease in listings.

The market didn’t kick into gear until the fourth quarter 2020, with negligible growth, like the rest of Australia, in the first nine months of the year. “The market came alive in Q4 2020, and started booming in Q1 2021,” Bell says. He says the first quarter (Q1) also saw interstate sea-changers from Sydney and Melbourne drop off, with the boom driven by locals.

New suburb price records have been set across the Gold Coast, from Tallebudgera Valley in the hinterland to Burleigh Waters. At the top end, Mermaid Beach has been strong and the median house price in Main Beach is tipped to hit $3 million in 2021 if the current rate of price growth continues.

Shooting for the suburb record in the hinterland is a brand new home in Bonogin, next to Tallebudgera Valley.

Queensland Sotheby’s Main Beach agent Scott Keatley is marketing the 17ha property. The four-bedroom house, with views to Broadbeach, Surfers Paradise and Coolangatta, spans 760sq m of living space. Glass sliders from the open plan kitchen, living and dining area – which features a fuel fireplace and Otago stacked stone feature wall – open to a wraparound terrace, infinity pool, spa, bar and alfresco area.

Queensland Sotheby’s founder Paul Arthur says he’s seeing strong demand at all price points, with calls from local, interstate and some Australians returning from overseas.

“Those who have money like to spend – and we’re seeing this in all luxury items, from cars to boats, and property,” Arthur says. He expects workplace changes from the pandemic “will only increase the usual migration from the southern capitals”.

“COVID has had a positive impact on acreage properties, so we are seeing a split preference for sea and tree change equally in demand,” he says.

Kollosche Broadbeach agent Michael Kollosche says demand is especially high across the central and southern beachside suburb,s and big gains have been achieved for acreage suburbs close to the beach such as Carrara, Mudgeeraba, Tallebudgera Valley, Bonogin, Currumbin Valley and Tallai. He says those areas have been particularly popular with the Sydney and Melbourne exodus.

“Southern buyers have been very active in the Gold Coast market since the second half of last year. Inquiry levels really ramped up during and off the back of those lockdown periods and interest remains high, for those relocating or looking for a holiday home,” he says, adding that New Zealand buyers are now coming back on the radar now the travel bubble is in place.

“Those groups are either looking with a view to relocate to the Gold Coast or to purchase a second home.”

Kollosche’s agency is marketing a European-style Paradise Waters waterfront house for a May 23 auction. Set on 770sq m near the river, the five-bedroom home on Buccaneer Court features a pool, spa and pavilion with an outdoor kitchen.

“Families are chasing larger houses with plenty of space to entertain outdoors, with amenities including pools, gyms and tennis courts high on the wishlist,” he says.

The emerging boom has given hopes for the Carrara home of racing driver Paul Weel, listed by Amir Mian Prestige agent Matthew Biviano for $11.95 million. The 4245sq m estate is one of just 15 exclusive north-facing sites to front the river.

Designed by Bayden Goddard, the grand residence has six bedrooms, a theatre, a Monaco Grand Prix-inspired bar, 10-car basement garage and gym, plus an 18m infinity pool, riverside pavilion, teppanyaki grill, tennis court and 15m pontoon.

THE WEEKEND AUSTRALIAN

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Exercise S U E WA L L AC E

Sights trained on home gyms Priorities have shifted from home theatres to dedicated rooms for exercise

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Stealth Pavilion sits in the garden and can be converted into guest accommodation PRUE RUSCOE

From rowing machines shoved under staircases and treadmills banished to laundries, home gyms are now becoming specially designed showplaces in which to shed those kilos and tone the body beautiful.

The demand for bespoke home gyms is a new trend that’s seeing the addition of classy havens where you can lift weights, and do your lunges, push-ups, burpees, squats and crunches.

The home-gym rethink has been fuelled by COVID-19 lockdowns that saw gyms close and sales of home gym equipment and activewear skyrocket. Dumbbells became as scarce as loo paper and, across the country, you had to be waitlisted for yoga mat purchases as they were in such short supply.

Exercise devotees were forced to improvise and set up their own workout areas, leaving many inspired to include a dedicated gym in their next build or house purchase.

Architects and real estate agents say they have noticed much more chat about a home gym for family and friends to use, whereas before it was more about home theatres.

Sydney architect Phillip Arnold of Plus Minus Design says that he’s seen more demand for specified home gyms and multifunctional rooms. “People no longer want to workout in a cramped spare room or in surplus garage space, and are looking for a comfortable area that can be multifunctional and is a pleasant place to spend time,” he says.

Arnold was engaged to create a gym and multifunctional pavilion in the stunning gardens of historic house Caerleon, a Queen Anne style beauty built in 1886 in Sydney’s Bellevue Hill.

The result, Stealth Pavilion, was finished just before COVID and is an outstanding example of a sleek gym that can easily be converted to guest accommodation.

There were many challenges for the project, as the house, garden, gate posts and five specific trees are heritage listed, leaving little room to manoeuvre.

Periodically over the past 12 years, Arnold has worked on the restoration of the house, which was designed for Charles Fairfax by architects Harry Kent in Sydney and Maurice Adams in London 136 years ago.

“We considered multiple locations for the pavilion, with the final position immediately inside the heritage-listed gates and within a grove that includes three of the five heritage-listed trees on the property, but well away from the house,” he says.

A Robert Plumb Build, Stealth Pavilion is clad in bronze mirror that reflects the surrounding garden designed by Dangar Barin Smith. Although only 10m from the street, it is so well disguised it may not be seen by passers-by.

Arnold says functional requirements were carefully laid out to minimise the footprint. The plan has two wings off the main space: a bathroom and a room for cardio equipment that could be used as a bedroom if the gym is converted to accommodation. In guesthouse mode, the dumbbell rack becomes a kitchenette, and a sofa would replace the weight-training machine.

The interior does double duty with walls and joinery in American oak, durable enough to survive vigorous use and also provide the warmth of a residential space.

Large windows frame views of the garden, gates, house and tree trunks, and a skylight looks up into the tree canopy.

“The pavilion is very much integrated into its setting, and through sensitive siting, respects, reflects and enhances its heritage site and its landscape context,” Arnold says.

His suggestions for a home gym include using durable building materials in case walls are knocked by the odd dumbbell or weight. “I know the American oak will withstand a whack from gym equipment, while something like plasterboard would immediately show the damage,” he says.

It’s also important to be comfortable as people spend a lot of time working out, so atmosphere matters.

Stealth Pavilion gym is used daily by family members and friends, according to Arnold, who is also engaged in another home gym project as part of his residential work.

Brisbane architect Dion Seminara echoes Arnold’s comments about the increasing demand for home gyms. “Yes, in every luxury

property a gym has an important place and position is key; people want to look over the swimming pool or have outstanding garden views,” he says. “What is essential is space to hold multiple machines, a miniature hot tub and sauna, as well as an extension to the workout areas and decent ceiling heights.”

Seminara says gyms are at the forefront of must-haves these days but they need to be separate from the main living areas.

“Couples train together and welcome neighbours and friends in so there are requests for much bigger spaces.”

Ray White Group managing director Dan White says he’s had more inquiries about home gyms in blue ribbon properties.

“COVID has prompted a lot of people to re-evaluate their life choices in luxury housing and many people want home gyms.”

So are home gyms just a passing fad? I’d bet a protein shake they are here to stay.

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Rural Victoria J ONAT H A N C H A NC E L L OR

Greener pastures City dwellers seeking a change of pace are heading to the hills and regional towns

Victoria’s extended coastline has long ranked as the most sought-after location luring residents away from Melbourne.

But post pandemic there’s been competition from the greener inland regions and bustling boomtime towns outside of the city that are seeing unprecedented demand.

Indeed, properties in regional Victoria saw a 7 per cent price spurt in the first quarter of 2021. CoreLogic ranked it as the best regional performer across the country, and it also outperformed all the capital cities, including Melbourne with its 4.9 per cent quarterly growth.

Terry Ryder, from website Hotspotting, says the big upswing is occurring throughout regional Victoria. He noted the shift was already under way given the decade or so of technological adjustment but the abrupt changes to the workplace during the pandemic had seen an acceleration in the trend.

Ray White Rural Victoria general manager Jason Hellyer says there are key buyer types, especially metropolitan retirees who are selling the family home in a rising market and using part of the proceeds to buy a regional home as well as increase their super balances. There are also high net worth families who are asset and cash rich and set on securing a prestige regional 32

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lifestyle property, coastal or country, that will be useful should Melburnians find themselves in another extended lockdown.

There are also many metropolitan, middle-class full-time professionals securing a regional property with a view to permanent relocation in the future.

Hellyer says that interest in owning a hobby farm is also increasingly a factor. “The thought of open space, coupled with the ability to potentially live off-grid and grow your own food is of interest to many.”

Hobby farms are also being transformed into the boutique production of low-yield, high-quality organic food and beverages, “or simply the establishment of an Airbnb business”.

Hellyer calculated that the statewide regional sales volume was around 15,000 compared with the final quarter of 2020 at 12,000, so volume was up around 24 per cent.

“When you consider Melbourne’s median is now sitting around $1 million, if you’re selling in Melbourne and buying in regional Victoria, with a median of $500,000 you’ve got plenty of funds to secure something substantial and/or surplus funds for a significant renovation,” Hellyer says.

He calculated the residential median for sales up to 4ha sat at

$712,500 in the Yarra Ranges Shire; at $870,000 in the Mornington Peninsula; at $588,000 in Greater Geelong City and in the Macedon Ranges Shire at $724,000. The cheapest of the six shires adjoining Melbourne were Mitchell at $480,000 and Murrindindi at $435,000.

The most obvious demand has been for localities within a two-hour drive of the CBD that previously catered mainly for the premium weekender market but have now pivoted to more semi-permanent owners.

Helen Sankey at RT Edgar Gisborne says most of her recent buyers have sold their properties in the city.

“Gisborne is the first regional town out of the metropolitan area, and very appealing to families seeking to raise their children, feel safe and enjoy the country lifestyle,” she says. “We have beautiful homes and properties that, once the buyers sell in the metro areas, are affordable and they have money left over.”

“Our projected population growth is the highest in the Macedon Ranges Shire because we are at the southern end of the Shire, closest to the city, along the Calder Highway and along the Melbourne Bendigo train line,” Sankey says. “I often ponder whether our crazy busy real estate market after the ‘ring of steel’ THE WEEKEND AUSTRALIAN

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Above, from left: Benloch property and its living area; Cloverdel, Station Road, Woodend Left: The cottage at Cathlaw; interior and exterior of the listing at Redesdale Right: Cloverdel, Woodend

lifted has been due to the backlog caused by the lockdowns and the fear of another metro lockdown, the new opportunities for working from home, and our proximity to the city via the highway or the train, or a combination of all these.”

Gisborne’s latest premium listing is Cathlaw, a threebedroom Indian bungalow style residence with classic verandas on 12ha with an original avenue of oaks and separate twobedroom cottage, north-south lawn tennis court, and vegetable garden. It comes with a $5.5 million asking price – five times the district’s $1.1 million upper-quartile median price.

Ryder sees the shift as “the exodus to affordable lifestyle”.

“It’s been led over the past three to four years by regional Victoria, with key markets pumped up by buyers out of Melbourne, first Geelong and Ballarat, then Bendigo, the towns of Cardinia Shire [Pakenham and Officer] and in the Latrobe Valley [Traralgon, Morwell, Moe]. Now it has spread further afield to Warrnambool, Mildura, Shepparton and Wodonga.”

He notes that in mid-2020 it looked like Geelong and Ballarat had peaked but they’ve had a second wave.

Ryder notes it has been well reported that the Mornington Peninsula on the southern fringe of Melbourne was a natural MAY 8-9, 2021

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beneficiary of the trend, with a broad range of price points. And he warns buyers to be careful that the locations they are targeting have solid credentials for sustainable growth. “At the moment it feels like you could throw a dart at a map and you would get good growth this year, but buyers need to consider the longer term, after the current boom has run out of steam.”

Jellis Craig Woodend agent Tom May says lifestyle properties in the Macedon Ranges area, around 60km northwest of Melbourne, are 20 per cent pricier over the past year, with 10 per cent of that coming in the first quarter of 2021.

May says stock levels are starting to dwindle, with days on market decreasing moving into an early winter cycle.

He recently secured the sale of Cloverdel, a near 3ha estate at Woodend. The classic autumnal property with century-old willows sold for $3.03 million at auction last month, well above its $2.5 million guide. There were six interested parties, split between intending to use it as a family home or as semi- permanent or a weekender. None wanted to keep it going as a wedding venue.

“We are seeing the sub-40 age bracket with high incomes who have access to inexpensive debt competing well against the over-55 market with a larger asset base who have historically

influenced the market,” May says. He has a listing at Benloch near Lancefield. Designed in 2004 by local Marcus Roberts Architect, the three-bedroom residence features an open plan living and dining area with Cheminées Philippe fireplace.

Flanked by a wide deck, it was built on 8725sq m with mature gardens. There’s a pinot gris plantation set away from the home.

The asking price is between $1.2 million and $1.3 million.

A listing at Redesdale, midway between Bendigo and Kyneton around 115km from Melbourne, has potential for more than just a weekender. The 97ha estate overlooking the Campaspe River comes with a 1000-vine vineyard and cellar door, 150 olive trees and a grazing area. Ray White Kyneton agents Helen Jens and Nathanial Briggs are seeking $2.95 million for the property.

Mike Day, a partner at town planners Hatch RobertsDay, notes the latest trends might see an end to the problem of the mass exodus of younger people to the city. But he warns that it is important for country towns to maintain their character in the face of newcomers from the city.

“Regional residents are closely connected to their towns and are sensitive to change,” he says.

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S P O N S O R E D CO N T E N T

Full floor living on the sand.

5 things to look for in a luxury apartment development From a prized location to the perfect layout, every aspect of your future home should leave you awestruck.

AU T H O R — A N D R E W S P R O J E C T S

If you’re in the market for a top end apartment, luxury will no doubt be number one on your list. But what makes a property more prestigious than the rest? What features should you look for to ensure you’re getting nothing but the best?

Whether you want to downsize from your family home to enjoy the good life, or put your feet up in a dream holiday escape, here are five must haves for your future luxury home.

1. A breathtaking location Truly luxurious living starts with a location that makes you wake up every morning and immediately think, ‘wow’.

The ultimate apartment to look for is in an iconic yet boutique building on a sought-after street. It should have architecture that perfectly complements its surroundings in terms of style, colour and form.

When you walk inside, a beautiful entrance is an immediate sign that you’re somewhere special.

Ideally, your home will be positioned just steps away from a pristine beach, but also just a few more to the very best cosmopolitan cafes, restaurants, cocktail bars, shops and entertainment.

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2. Space Space and and privacy privacy Luxury Luxury apartment apartment life life isis at at its its finest finest when when you you have have an an entire entire floor floor of of the the building building to to yourself. yourself. Once Once you you step step out out of of the the lift, lift, you you can can relax relax in in perfect perfect privacy. privacy.

The The next next thing thing to to look look for for isis aa generous generous floor floor plan plan that that flows flows seamlessly seamlessly from from indoors indoors to to out. out. ItIt should should start start with with aa welcoming welcoming hallway hallway and and end end in in aa balcony balcony with with spectacular spectacular views. views.

In In between, between, look look for for at at least least three three bedrooms bedrooms with with light-filled light-filled ensuites ensuites and and aa master master that that has has its its own own Juliet Juliet balcony balcony so so you you can can open open the the doors doors to to the the sunshine. sunshine. AA large large walk-in-robe walk-in-robe and and free-standing free-standing bath bath can can be be the the finishing finishing touches touches on on your your blissful blissful sanctuary. sanctuary.

Of Of course, course, you’ll you’ll want want to to find find aa generous generous living living and and dining dining area, area, an an impressive impressive kitchen kitchen with with aa large large island island bench bench and and aa butler’s butler’s pantry pantry to to make make sure sure entertaining entertaining isis fuss fuss free. free.

Luxury Luxury lives lives here here — — natural natural stone stone finishes finishes with with Miele Miele appliances. appliances.

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3. Ultimate Ultimate appliances appliances There’s There’s no no question question that that when when buying buying the the best best apartment, apartment, you’ll you’ll also also want want the the best best appliances. appliances.

European European Miele Miele stovetops stovetops and and ovens ovens make make itit simple simple to to cook cook up up aa storm, storm, while while air air conditioning conditioning will will make make sure sure you’re you’re cool cool on on the the warmest warmest of of days. days.

IfIf you you like like aa glass glass of of wine wine or or two, two, opt opt for for aa built-in built-in wine wine fridge fridge to to keep keep your your collection collection at at just just the the right right temperature temperature all all year year round. round.

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4. Quality Quality construction construction and and materials materials Some Some buildings buildings might might look look luxurious luxurious from from afar, afar, but but the the real real evidence evidence isis in in the the build build quality. quality.

Premier Premier beachfront beachfront living living with with secure secure basement basement and and private private lift lift entry. entry.

At At luxury luxury Gold Gold Coast Coast development development Dune, Dune, architectural architectural firm firm Rothelowman, Rothelowman, developer developer Andrews Andrews Projects Projects and and Hutchinson Hutchinson Builders Builders have have put put fine fine craftsmanship craftsmanship front front and and centre centre of of the the project. project.

Suiting Suiting the the name name Dune, Dune, the the overall overall image image isis designed designed to to look look like like sand sand that that has has been been artistically artistically “whipped “whipped up up by by the the wind”. wind”. Features Features such such as as bronze bronze battens battens bring bring aa unique unique texture, texture, while while sturdy sturdy concrete concrete columns columns and and metal metal balustrades balustrades offer offer timeless timeless style. style.

Other Other markers markers of of quality quality to to look look for for are are double-glazed double-glazed windows, windows, natural natural timbers timbers and and stones, stones, carefully carefully crafted crafted rounded rounded edgings, edgings, built-in built-in strip strip lighting lighting and and plush plush carpets carpets for for comfort. comfort.

5.

5. First-class First-class amenities amenities Amazing Amazing amenities amenities are are the the finishing finishing touch touch to to luxurious luxurious living. living. Think Think infinity infinity pools, pools, outdoor outdoor yoga yoga spaces, spaces, wellness wellness gyms gyms fitted fitted with with the the latest latest equipment, equipment, as as well well as as saunas saunas and and hot hot and and cold cold spas. spas.

Unrivalled Unrivalled wellness wellness experience experience with with magnesium magnesium pool, pool, spas, spas, sauna sauna and and oversized oversized ggym. ym.

With With so so many many great great things, things, itit won’t won’t hurt hurt to to add add one one more more –– outdoor outdoor showers. showers.

You You can can wash wash away away the the sand sand after after aa beach beach swim swim before before jumping jumping on on aa poolside poolside lounge lounge with with aa book. book.

IfIf you you ever ever want want to to leave leave your your haven, haven, make make sure sure you you have have aa stylish stylish beach beach club club right right downstairs, downstairs, where where you you can can drop drop in in for for aa meal meal or or drinks drinks and and catch catch up up with with family family and and friends. friends.

This This isis what what residents residents at at Dune Dune will will get get to to enjoy, enjoy, explains explains developer developer Danny Danny Andrews.

Andrews. “We’re “We’re bringing bringing aa new new version version of of beachfront beachfront living,” living,” he he says. says.

“The “The attention attention to to detail detail will will be be unrivalled unrivalled to to what what has has been been seen seen on on the the Gold Gold Coast Coast before.” before.”

S SA AR RA AH HA AN ND DR RE EW WS S 0 04 42211 777711 4 43 30 0 D DU UN NE EM MA AIIN NB BE EA AC CH H..C CO OM M..A AU U

ARMIDALE 525 Cluny Road, 'Cluny' Set on 3 acres of gardens and improvements is the wonderful 'Cluny' homestead, accessed via a tree lined driveway off the sealed Cluny Road. 46ha (115 acres) of basalt and granite grazing land in excellent order with body of feed. 5km to Armidale Centre, 1 hour to Tamworth and 10 minutes to Armidale Regional Airport with daily flights. Featuring 5 bedrooms, 3 bathrooms, expansive internal/external living areas, outdoor areas with rural vistas, 10 paddocks, 8 dams and bore, 8 bay stables used by Cobb and Co with tac room and attic, chicken run, machinery shed with separate apartment with views. 'Cluny' has been over 100 years in the making and presents an opportunity for those who seek a lifestyle change.

All information contained herein is gathered from sources we deem to be reliable. However we cannot guarantee its accuracy and interested parties should rely on their own enquiries.

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Auction Wednesday, 9th June at 6:00pm Level 1, 29-33 Bay Street, Double Bay View Contact Agent

David Medina 0419 772 233 James McCowan 0418 800 400 sydneysothebysrealty.com

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THE WEEKEND AUSTRALIAN

| MAY 8-9, 2021

11 Beachfront Mirage Drive, Port Douglas, QLD, 4877

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Secluded Beachfront Luxury Home 11 Beachfront Mirage Drive is located within the exclusive, gated Beachfront Mirage Estate in Port Douglas. Designed with our tropical climate in mind, the indoor and outdoor spaces blend seamlessly, creating a relaxed holiday atmosphere and making this the perfect retreat for your next escape or permanent escape.

Surrounded by lush, tropical gardens, boardwalks and a large heated sparkling blue swimming pool with space to lounge around all complementing the beautiful modern interiors.

Comprised of 3 pavilions, the main includes an open plan gourmet kitchen and spacious living area, opening out onto the pool with heated pool spa and outdoor dining areas. Beach access is gained through your own private gate. Upstairs, two identical master bedrooms are accessed by their own staircases. Each includes balconies and stunning en-suite bathrooms overlooking tropical gardens.

Two further pavilions contain the third and fourth bedrooms, en suite and laundry. An outdoor BBQ with surrounding seating is a social area to enjoy outdoor cooking and dining.

• Completely redesigned by Nathan Verri and elegantly refurbished • 2 minute walk to beach

by Jordin Fleming Design • Double lock up garage • Private and secure gated community • Offered on a walk in walk out basis (fully furnished) To view the video, floor plan & more images go to raineandhorne.com.au/portdouglas/properties/11-beachfront-mirage-drive-port-douglas-4877-queensland For a private inspection, contact David Cotton on 0417 709 667.

David Cotton

Ph: 0417 709 667

Email: david.cotton@portdouglas.rh.com.au | Web: raineandhorne.com.au Raine & Horne Port Douglas, 8/56 Macrossan Street, Port Douglas Qld 4877 MAY 8-9, 2021

| THE WEEKEND AUSTRALIAN

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Absolute riverfront 2, 3 & 4 bedroom luxury apartments $839,000 - $3.5M WITH RIVER & OCEAN VIEWS AND 5 STAR AMENITY FROM

Experience an unmatched level of luxury & amenity at ‘One Cannes’, with the most distinctive collection of residents amenity on the Gold Coast, including 25m infinity edge pool, full-sized gym, private dining room, private boardroom, offices & more. North-facing & in a secluded, leafy enclave with absolute river & park frontages, less than a 5 min walk to a patrolled beach, cafes & more.

W W W.ONECANNES.COM. AU

PROUDLY DELIVERING AWARD -WINNING DE VELOPMENTS A $40 0 MILLION TR ACK RECORD ON THE GOLD COAST

Luxurious half-floor 3 bedroom apartments with stunning ocean views FROM

$1.15M - $1.8M

N E S T L E D B E T W E E N B R OA D B E AC H & S U R F E R S PA R A D I S E Shoreline represents a rare opportunity to enjoy an unprecedented level of space, privacy & luxury – with only 2 large 3 bedroom residences per floor. Perfectly positioned in a quiet residential pocket between two of the Gold Coast’s most exciting precincts, Broadbeach & Surfers Paradise, you are only a few steps from a year-round patrolled beach, future Michelin Star restaurant, cafes, Broadbeach Surf Club & more.

W W W.SHORELINERESIDENCES.COM. AU

FOR MORE INFORMATION, PLEASE CALL - MICHAEL SYMONS 0427 065 693 - DAN O’HALLOR AN 0405 516 471

Prestige Market Update KAREN DELLOW

46 Seaview Terrace, Sunshine Beach, Queensland, sold for $17 million last year

Street cred

These are Australia’s most sought-after addresses The luxury property market proved its resilience in 2020 after a challenging year brought about by a pandemic and a recession.

Most premium suburbs experienced positive median price growth with Centennial Park, Clareville and Tamarama, around Sydney, topping the price growth list. The pandemic forced us into a new way of working and, for the first time, we did not have to commute to an office, so living further away from the city became an option.

A combination of search data and house price growth reveals Victoria’s Mornington Peninsula, and the Central Coast and Richmond-Tweed, both in NSW, were where property seekers on realestate.com.au wanted to live.

This trend can also be seen in the top 10 most popular streets in luxury suburbs. Mosman makes the list, at number eight, but all other metro Sydney suburbs have been eclipsed by streets in Byron Bay and nearby Broken Head.

Australia’s favourite street in a luxury neighbourhood, based on views per listing on realestate.com.au, is Victoria Avenue, Unley Park, SA. Victoria Avenue is known for its period homes and the beautiful mansion at 4 Victoria Avenue, built around 1912, is the most expensive property ever sold on that street, going for $5.1 million in 2014.

Queensland’s Sunshine Beach, near Noosa Heads, has long been a luxury holiday home destination, and restrictions on travel, especially overseas travel, coupled with low interest rates, increased its popularity in the past 12 months. Seaview Terrace, in the most expensive pocket of Sunshine Beach, is the second most popular street on the list. The most expensive Seaview Terrace MAY 8-9, 2021

| THE WEEKEND AUSTRALIAN

sale was last year when No. 46 went for $17 million, although the most expensive property is likely a luxury eco-mansion at No. 17, which reportedly cost $21 million to build in 2019. For a modest $12,570 a night, you can experience the ocean views for yourself.

Two other holiday home favourites are Broken Head, the home of Hollywood star Chris Hemsworth, and Byron Bay, another celebrity hot spot. Owenia Way, Broken Head, is one of the top streets for luxury properties. The most expensive property to sell in recent years is Blackwood House, for $3.8 million in 2018.

Chris Hemsworth’s sprawling property on Seven Mile Beach Road is likely the most expensive property in the area, at an estimated $20 million. Neighbouring Byron Bay is a perennial favourite with interstate and overseas vacationers and Broken Head Road is the most popular street based on average views per listing on realestate.com.au. Properties on Broken Head Road are more affordable than those typically found in Byron Bay; the most expensive properties are on Byron’s beachfront or nestled into the hillside above Wategos.

In Western Australia, View Street in Peppermint Grove and Jutland Parade in Dalkieth are in the top five. Both suburbs have a median house price more than six times the Perth median.

And, of course, the blue-chip Melbourne suburbs of Brighton, Toorak and Canterbury make the list. Seacombe Grove in Brighton, Hopetoun Avenue, Canterbury, and Denham Place, Toorak, contain some of Victoria’s most impressive properties.

Karen Dellow is an analyst with realestate.com.au

QUEST FOR THE BEST the most popular streets

Rank

Street

Suburb

1

Victoria Ave

Unley Park SA 5061

2

Seaview Tce

Sunshine Beach Qld 4567

3

Jutland Pde

Dalkeith WA 6009

4

Seacombe Gve

Brighton VIC 3186

5

View St

Peppermint Grove WA 6011

6

Hopetoun Ave

Canterbury VIC 3126

7

Denham Pl

Toorak VIC 3142

8

Almora St

Mosman NSW 2088

9

Owenia Way

Broken Head NSW 2481

10

Broken Head Rd

Byron Bay NSW 2481

Source: realestate.com.au

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PANORAMIC BAY VIEWS FROM YOUR OWN

FRONT DECK! 336 FLINDERS PARADE, BRIGHTON With outstanding water views and such a convenient loca�on this large family home on 817m2, is simply perfect for those requiring plenty of room for extended family living arrangements, accommoda�ng those Interstate visitors or running a home-based business.

The floorplan is perfectly designed for ensuring space and privacy for any family dynamic.

Upstairs you’ll find four bedrooms, two bathrooms, a massive open-plan living/ dining and kitchen area leading out onto the front deck plus a gorgeous ‘snug’ area - perfect for relaxing with a book or enjoying a morning coffee whilst admiring the Bay.

Inspection:

By Private Inspection only

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If absolute waterfront living, enjoying magnificent Moreton Bay views every day, has always been a dream of yours, then 336 Flinders Parade, Brighton should definitely be considered…

Call Karen Prince now on 0437 015 951 to arrange your private inspec�on.

SPECIAL FEATURES : • Desirable waterfront position • Views that cannot be built out • Large 817m2 block • Low-maintenance brick and colorbond family home • Extensive floorplan - superb for extended families • Huge 3-bay garage at the rear of the property

Price: Offers over $1.8 million

Agent: Karen Prince

0437 015 951

ABSOLUTE BEACHFRONT LUXURY 70% SOLD

Nearing completion Agent: Kevin Bostock 0418 125 356

Home & hearth J ONAT H A N C H A NC E L L OR

The beloved AGA at Musk Farm near Daylesford

House warming The late Melbourne interior designer Stuart Rattle always had an AGA cooker running at his weekender Musk Farm, near Daylesford in Victoria.

“Stuart loved the AGA and called it the heart of the home,” recalls landscaper Paul Bangay, the designer’s friend and colleague, in the 2014 book Stuart Rattle’s Musk Farm by Annemarie Kiely.

“It was always going, even if it was 40 degrees outside,” Bangay says. “As an Anglophile, Rattle swore it was the only real oven to have, adding that anyone who considered themselves a serious cook had to have one.”

Bangay says Rattle, who died in 2013, was “great at designing kitchens because he loved to cook”.

The wood-burning AGA is still in situ at Musk Farm, which was recently placed on the market. The vendors listed it through Belle Daylesford agent Annette Leary for $3.5 million.

The home’s farmhouse-style kitchen also features a marbletopped American oak island bench.

Of course the AGA was not just for cooking, heating the house or keeping the dogs warm overnight.

The world-renowned cooker, which sells for between $12,000 and $30,000 or more, has long been marketed as an aristocrat for the upper-class. But it has its critics. Last month a column by foodie Ameer Kotecha in The Spectator derided the impractical, expensive AGA, querying why anyone would want one.

“For one-pot stews, slow-baked pies and other wintry warmers MAY 8-9, 2021

| THE WEEKEND AUSTRALIAN

they are ideal,” he wrote. “But they are the least multicultural of cooking appliances; not only would making a Chinese stir-fry on an AGA feel incongruous, it would be almost impossible as the hotplates would struggle to get your wok hot enough.”

However, octogenarian English foodie Mary Berry, the AGA’s most famous advocate, says owning one is “like joining the best club in the country … when you meet another AGA owner it is like discovering an instant friend.

“I love the warmth and the wonderful welcome. If I had to live without one, I’d loathe it,” Berry wrote in Country Life in 2017.

Once fuelled by coal, most AGA cookers are now powered by gas, oil and electricity, and while they are still made at a foundry in Shropshire in the UK, AGA has introduced new models that permit all the elements to be switched on and off as needed.

Buyers can even control it remotely via a smartphone, a feature that has helped the brand win environmentally-minded millennial converts.

The handcrafted, British cast-iron cookers – invented by Nobel Prize-winning Swedish physicist Dr Gustaf Dalén – celebrate their century next year.

The legendary adman David Ogilvy, who went on to found the advertising agency Ogilvy & Mather, worked at AGA in the 1930s, where he helped to formulate the marketing promotion of the cooker.

“Heat storage is the oldest known form of cooking,” the campaign stated. “Aborigines bake their hedgehogs in the ashes of

a dying fire. The baker’s brick oven has been in use for centuries and is known by most women to be traditionally the perfect oven.

The hay-box came into its own during the war.

“But the AGA is not just a glorified hay-box with a fire inside, or a baker’s oven put in a polished case of chromium plate and vitreous enamel. It is the result of applying contemporary scientific knowledge of combustion, metallurgy and nutrition to the accumulated kitchen sense of centuries.”

For its first few decades the AGA was available only in cream, but pale blue, pale green, grey and white arrived in the 1950s, around the same time the chrome-plated lid domes were introduced. The 1970s saw the launch of black, which is still popular. AGA launched its first electric range cooker in 1985. It retained the traditional features but needed no flue.

These days there’s a range of upright cookers in Australian kitchens that are great statement pieces and also provide robust cooking performance, according to Bruce Cranston, product expert at Winning Appliances.

Upright cookers come in different sizes and provide spacious oven capacity for everyday cooking.

“We are noticing increased interest in double oven configurations, with a single oven and a companion product of either a combi-microwave or combination steam oven,” Cranston says. “Combi-steam ovens are becoming increasingly popular and people are getting more curious about the benefits of steam cooking.”

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Mansion

BLOOMING GORGEOUS The joy of floral arrangements

SEEING THE LIGHT Transforming a period cottage

BOLDNESS IS ALL Statement decor pieces

Floral art L I BBY MOF F E T

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In full bloom

We’re going crazy for colourful flowers, natives and beautiful foliage to brighten our lives and bring a sense of hope and joy 50

MANSIONAUSTRALIA.COM.AU

It was former US First Lady and conservationist Lady Bird Johnson who coined the phrase, “Where flowers bloom, so does hope”.

More than 50 years on, the saying still has resonance, with local florists reporting that Australians have turned to flowers like never before to brighten their homes and support their friends through the trials of COVID-19.

“It’s phenomenal how receptive people are to flowers at the moment,” says leading creative florist Saskia Havekes. Her Grandiflora studio in Sydney’s Potts Point has seen longer, more intense messages being sent with flowers since the pandemic struck. “It’s just a very sound way of showing affection and appreciation,” she says.

According to Havekes, there’s now strong demand for foliage, with THE WEEKEND AUSTRALIAN

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MAY 8-9, 2021

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NIKKI SHORT

JESSE MARLOW

her studio creating large arrangements in different tones of green, featuring beautifully shaped leaves such as camellia and magnolia, as well as large tropical leaves, green hydrangea and other verdant offerings including lemons on branches.

“People are really responding to that – I think there’s a newness and a freshness in having green around you. It just makes people feel calm, so we’ve found it’s been very popular.”

Australian natives also have a massive profile at the moment, says Havekes, who recalls that natives were a “hard sell” when she first opened Grandiflora in 1996.

“People are much, much more interested in our native flowers, which is really exciting – we’re stronger in our national identity now and we’re very proud of it. We can’t buy enough of them.”

Among the most popular natives are flowering eucalyptus and banksias as well as gumnuts, which Havekes says seem to strike a special chord with Australians who grew up with May Gibbs’ tales about the gumnut babies, Snugglepot and Cuddlepie.

There’s also a trend towards a combination of displays in the home, such as a big vase of tropical leaves and smaller specimen vases of orchids or tulips, enabling their beauty to be better observed.

According to Havekes, there’s now more appreciation of rare flowers. “When I first started at the shop, we’d be doing flowers for famous people and sending 500 stems of, say, red roses or white roses – the volume was the thing that impressed people.

“Now I have suppliers who will send me a beautiful box with the most exquisite leaves and four or five beautiful cattleya orchids. And if Madonna or Nicole Kidman came to Australia, that’s what I would send them because it’s just so precious.”

Havekes says cut flowers continue to be in demand for homes, with a vase filled with one type of flower such as dark tulips and David Austin roses proving popular. Hydrangeas and peonies are also in vogue.

While dried flowers have been on trend in recent years, Havekes uses them very selectively, and now sees people leaning towards more uplifting greens and fresh blooms.

“We also get requests for scented flowers all the time – I think people’s tastes are really refined at the moment and they really want that interaction with the natural,” she says.

Melbourne florist Steven Maccora also reports a swing to a more natural feel among his clients, with some even asking him to cut something from their gardens to incorporate in his creations for their homes.

“A lot of people I work with are starting to like a look that appears as if it has been thrown together by them. It has a garden feeling, as opposed to ‘my house is so grand I want it to be like a hotel foyer’,” Maccora says. In preference to an oversized arrangement, people are filling multiple gorgeous small ceramic vases with flowers, he says.

There’s also demand for foliage such as copper beech and maple, styled in an abstract way.

Maccora, whose studio Le Salon aux Fleurs is in Armadale, says he’s never been busier, thanks to Victoria’s COVID-19 lockdowns. “Most of the people I deal with would have been in Europe from June to September normally, but they were all at home and sending flowers.

“Throughout COVID, sending flowers just became the trend – people would give me a list of the friends they wanted to cheer up and would ask me to make something bright and natural-looking for them.”

Maccora has observed a shift towards coloured flowers, with yellow and orange tones on the rise, along with the popular dark mauves, crimsons, reds and pinks. “During COVID, all of a sudden people who used to like just one colour, or all white, wanted colour in their houses.

They wanted to be brightened up and they’re sticking with it now.”

In Brisbane, floral creator Nicole Cooper says her Fortitude Valleybased studio Stem Design is seeing strong demand for foliage.

“Ninety per cent of home deliveries are foliage based at the moment, not floral at all,” Cooper says. “It’s that kind of un-puttogether look, where it’s like they’ve just gone into their garden and they’ve cut the foliage and brought it into their house.”

Cooper says local tropical leaves such as ginger are popular, alongside maple and olive leaves from the southern states.

Like Maccora, she reports a move away from white flowers, and says nude and peach tones are big in the Brisbane market, while natives are also in demand.

She also feels the dried flower trend is on the way out. “I think people want life … they want to be connected with nature again.”

Mansion asked Saskia Havekes and Steven Maccora to each create a display within a $250 budget to showcase the latest floral trends. Havekes crafted a display for a kitchen bench using fruiting olive, organic lemons on branches, apple-green hydrangea, lemon sunflowers, fruticosa balls, green trachelium and ligularia leaf. “Kitchens always lend themselves to a natural field-collected look, plucked from the garden. Anything that relates to food works well in this area, with simplicity,” she says.

For his creation for a hallway table, Maccora, opposite, used orange parrot tulips, white delphinium, orange dahlias and montbretia berry. “I wanted to create a display that looked like it was picked out of an English garden – not too structured, but as though the gardener would have collected them in his hand.”

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The gloomy 1915 cottage has been transformed with an architect’s eye for connection to outdoor spaces

LIGHT FANTASTIC

A dramatic extension has turned a dilapidated cottage into a serene, private retreat S t o r y b y L U K E S L AT T E RY P h o t o g r a p h y b y T OM F E RG U S ON.

MAY 8-9, 2021

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At first glance, Sydney architect Carla Middleton’s Queen’s Park House – an extension and adaptation of an existing late Edwardian Federation-style period home – looks to have been governed chiefly by that classic Corbusian imperative, “to introduce the sun”.

Light capture was certainly an important goal of the design, but there’s a lot more going on at this house overlooking one of Sydney’s most spacious parks: 26ha of playgrounds, sporting fields and cycleways.

A single-storey building of brick on a sandstone base from 1915 has been given a full second floor with a triple pitched roofline to the rear. Both floors, though carefully segmented and rationally organised by function – living room, kitchen and bedroom – are at the north-facing rear of the building clad uniformly in glass to admit natural light.

The new roofline is a riff on the hipped and gabled slate roof of the original house. The owners found it largely intact, despite heavy alterations to the rear, which had been given a humble skillion roof. “But it was pretty dilapidated,” Middleton adds. “The ceilings were falling through; the floorboards were holed.”

Those initial impressions of a building opened to the light give way, on closer inspection, to a more complex set of design precepts driven by a desire to simultaneously orient the house to its enclosed garden and provide the owners with shelter from the busy street and a sense of privacy and internal retreat.

The dramatically open rear of the building is matched by its more inward and protected Manning Street side, where an elevated highlight window on the first floor guarantees the young family privacy. The cladding here is of vertical Scyon board.

When Middleton first started working with her clients, children weren’t in the picture and their priorities can be gauged by the conversion of two downstairs bedrooms into a golf simulator. But that had all changed by the time the

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Elements of the home’s heritage were retained and modernised with an elegant, muted palette, and spaces evolved to cater to the young family

renovation and extension was completed, in November 2019, for what had become a family of four.

“It was very interesting the way the project evolved,” says the architect, who aims to educate her clients on the quality of space over its quantity. “Initially it was more about removing bedrooms rather than the typical brief of adding on bedrooms. People are usually wanting more space, more bedrooms – always bigger, bigger, bigger. These clients wanted to keep the bedrooms really refined and work on the living spaces. On the ground floor we retained the typical front four-bedroom, double-fronted layout, added the golf simulator, a bathroom and the stairs.”

To Middleton’s amazement, the clients also asked for a reduction in the size of the pool and a smaller garage. By shrinking the old three-car garage, she was able to create an outdoor lounge enfolded in a garden.

The somewhat gloomy old period house had retained some of its original grace notes, such as moulded timber skirting, moulded plaster cornices, coloured glass and decorative windowsills. The front rooms were converted into rumpus rooms. On the other side of the central arched hall a large room bordered by a porch has become a study.

Meanwhile, the rear of the new extension is entirely given over to the spacious kitchen and living room. Though light filled and north facing, it is, in the architect’s words, “super private”. The bedrooms have been raised to the

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second storey. Jutting from the old slate roof at the front, and facing Queens Park Road, is a dormer window. Behind it lies a rumpus room and study.

The design was not without its complications, brought about by the challenges of a long, thin urban block, and the integration of a heritage building and a contemporary structure more than a century apart. Constraints were imposed by privacy, sunlight and orientation.

Nor was the construction free of challenges. The steel structures that make up the rear of the house are organised around a T-shaped frame and the awning on the first-floor Manning Street level needed to be craned into place. The budget was another limitation on a young family.

The interior is clean and elegant and the palette muted, white giving way to greys and black. The house conforms wonderfully to the architect’s philosophy of engagement with nature. “I strongly believe every room should have a connection with a garden and a sense of greenery,” she says.

“If a room can have even a glimmer of a view of a tree through a highlight window, I feel I’ve succeeded.”

A connection with nature serves an emotional need, but Middleton works from a source of motivation that is humane in an even deeper sense. “The inner drive for my architecture is to create homes that are happy places,” she says. “A home, ultimately, is a place that invites us to be who we want to be.”

THE WEEKEND AUSTRALIAN

| MAY 8-9, 2021

MAY 8-9, 2021

| THE WEEKEND AUSTRALIAN

MANSIONAUSTRALIA.COM.AU

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Etc. S A M YA T E S

1.

2.

6.

3.

4.

5.

Bold statement 1. P E N D A N T

LIGHT

1965 Gubi pendant in bistro green, $919 cultdesign.com.au

2. R U G

Moooi Carpets Liquid Maple rug. Inspired by the beauty and complexity of life, this 3mx4m design captures a 3D-generated network of trees, $5570 spacefurniture.com

3. P L A T E S

Hippomobiles by artist Gianpaolo Pagni, set of two $450. (Available from late May.) hermes.com

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4. T A B L E

Agapecasa M Table in Nero Marquna marble, $19,481 artedomus.com

5. C H A I S E

PINCH Leta chaise with tinted walnut legs. Fabric supplied by PINCH or customer, $9275 spenceandlyda.com.au

6. B E D

LINEN

Garrow Tailored Quilt Cover in Midnight crafted with the finest quality 1200 thread count cotton, from $629.99 (Pillowcases and accessories sold separately.) sheridan.com.au THE WEEKEND AUSTRALIAN

| MAY 8-9, 2021

The McGrath Southern Highlands Team

The team at McGrath Southern Highlands are dedicated to helping their clients achieve their dream outcome, whether it be selling or leasing.

We would like to thank our clients for their continued support and look forward to working together to achieve their Real Estate goals throughout the year.

If you are thinking Selling, Buying or Property Management we would love to hear from you and discuss how we can work with you in the future.

McGrath Southern Highlands 02 4862 2122 Principal - Anne Stone annestone@mcgrath.com.au 0414 457 868

mcgrath.com.au