Domain Prestige - June 26, 2019

26 JUNE / 2019

PRESTIGE THE BEST IN AUSTRALIAN PROPERTY

PICTURE PERFECT The ar t of s tyle

B y K ATE FARRE LLY

Burradoo Southern Highlands 107 Osborne Road $4.7 million

J E N M E LO CCO

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For sale: by expressions of interest Agent: Knight Bailey, Michael Cawthorn 0404 111 366 The stakes are high when selling a luxury property and no more so than

If Chastleton doesn’t win you over with its

in the style stakes. Putting in up to $200,000 to style a luxury home is not

circular, tree-lined drive and grand porte cochere,

unheard of as we find out in our feature story today. Then there is a further

the soaring ceilings, hand-crafted rosewood

cost, for those inclined, of bringing in an art expert who can curate a

joinery and roaring fireplace should do the trick.

collection for your walls to make your house an even more enticing buy.

Sprawling across a single level and wrapped in

Meanwhile, in Property Path, we look at the journey that actor Nicole

magnificent gardens, the home sits on 5055

Kidman has made in her home-owning path. The US-based Kidman

square metres a few minutes’ drive from Bowral.

certainly started young, buying her first Sydney home when she was still a teenager and since then has developed quite a portfolio. Finally, in Living In, we visit the Brisbane riverside suburb of Fig Tree Pocket. Leafy, quiet and

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with plenty of room to move, it’s the place where people are happy to forgo

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cafe life in favour of being a bit closer to nature while still living in the city.

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Editor: Jen Melocco Jen.Melocco@domain. com.au Editorial producer: Isabelle Chesher Managing editor: Alice Stolz Senior designer: Colleen Chin Quan Graphic designer: Emma Staughton Chief executive officer: Jason Pellegrino Chief consumer officer: Jason Chuck Residential sales: Queensland Brad McLeod, 0429 571 826 New South Wales Belinda Sinclair 0414 580 903 Victoria & Tasmania Mitch Armstrong 0438 820 767 Western Australia, South Australia & Northern Territory Jeroen van de Peppel 0427 292 797

HOT PROPERTY

PROPERTY PATH Nicole Kidman’s home journey

FEATURE STORY Best impressions

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Digital edition Visit domain.com.au/ digitaledition

O U R COVE R 17 Moncur Street

LIVING IN Relax in Fig Tree Pocket

Woollahra, NSW Listed by The Agency PAG E 6

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LUXE LIFE Bespoke water beauty

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Use the Domain app codes to see more of your favourite properties

Ocean Grove Bellarine Peninsula 23 The Avenue $4 million-$4.4 million

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Expressions of interest: close July 22 Agent: Fletchers Bellarine, Liam Rock 0439 662 307 Coastline views stretching to Lorne are a highlight at this three-level home that comes with keyless entry and lift access. Designed for the entertainer, the property has bright, open-plan living spaces on the upper level and a lounge with second kitchen on the lower level opening to the heated pool.

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Darling Point

Palm Beach

Sydney 3/7 Loftus Road

Gold Coast 167 Jefferson Lane

$8.8 million

Auction

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Expressions of interest: close July 11

Auction: July 6

Agent: 1st City Real Estate Group, Julian Hasemer 0412 207 206

Agent: Ray White Mermaid Beach,

Rushcutters Bay with a backdrop of the city skyline and Harbour Bridge

Troy Dowker 0409 057 087

provides a wonderful outlook from this whole-floor apartment, the largest

A daily surf is easy when you call this near-new

in the new Aloft development. Enjoy heated travertine floors, Villeroy &

beachfront residence home. The two living

Boch bathrooms and a marble kitchen with Gaggenau appliances.

spaces have a stunning ocean backdrop.

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PROPERTY PATH

B y LU CY MACKE N

From one-bedder to luxury digs Actor Nicole Kidman took on Hollywood and conquered the world, collecting a global property portfolio along the way.

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icole Kidman was still a teenager in 1987 when she bought her first home, a one-bedroom apartment above the shops in Mosman village for $81,000.

It was not an ambitious first home purchase – Sydney’s median apartment price was $86,200 – but it was purchased with no mortgage.

Kidman was tasting fame for the first time after the TV mini-series Vietnam, in which she starred, had broadcast to rave reviews just a few months earlier, and had enough money to secure her a foothold in the property market.

The one-bedder opposite Mosman’s Buena Vista Hotel remains the only Australian real estate Kidman has owned in her name.

In 1990, she was thrust into the global spotlight when she married superstar Tom Cruise, and the Darling Point duplex the couple bought in a trust in 1995 for $4.2 million

became celebrity ground zero for Sydney’s paparazzi. The second half of the duplex was added in 1998 for $4.75 million.

That Darling Point home remained Kidman’s Sydney base after she and Cruise separated in 2001, and her acclaim as an actor took off in the years that followed with critically acclaimed roles in Cold Mountain, The Interpreter and The Hours – for which she won an Academy Award. It was sold for $12 million in 2009.

Marriage to country rock star Keith Urban in 2006 was followed by a real estate reshuffle.

She off-loaded a two-storey penthouse in the Walsh Bay Pier – purchased months before her second marriage – for $4.65 million.

She bought her historic Georgian mansion Bunya Hill at Sutton Forest in the Southern Highlands in 2008 for $6.5 million from NAB senior executive Peter Coad, retaining the 1878-

built residence on 45 hectares to this day as her Australian holiday home.

As for her Sydney base, she bought one of three penthouses in the Latitude building at Milsons Point – a few kilometres from her mother Janelle’s Greenwich home – for about $6 million in 2009 from Mark Bouris.

The adjoining penthouse was added in 2012 for more than $7 million to create a mega spread, and a gym added by way of a third apartment two storeys down for $2.68 million in 2011.

Kidman’s permanent base since she and Urban married has been Nashville, where the couple bought a seven-bedroom mansion with tennis court and pool in Northumberland for $US3.47 million in 2008.

A Hollywood home was included in the 2008 buy-up when she paid more than $US4.7 million for the manse of record producer and songwriter Ron Fair, and a New York bolthole in 2010 in a newly completed 19-level building in West Chelsea for $US10 million.

The woman who is ranked on the 2017 Financial Review Rich List worth $347 million has come a long way from the Mosman onebedder she gifted to her sister Antonia in 1993 and that was later sold for $260,000 in 1998.

LOUISE KENNERLEY

Nicole Kidman bought the historic Southern Highlands mansion Bunya Hill at Sutton Forest in 2008 for $6.5 million.

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When it comes to property, it is all about selling the dream, not just the home.

B y SU E WILLIAMS

In grand style 6

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COVER STORY

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ne area of prestige property that’s absolutely booming is professional styling for sale, with claims that it can shave up to four weeks off a home’s time on a softening market and add to its price by as much as 20 per cent.

“The average time on market for Sydney homes, on Domain Group data, is 71 days – nearly a month longer than this time last year,” says Sydney agent Ben Collier of The Agency Eastern Suburbs. “So, good styling is absolutely essential to reduce the time it takes to sell – taking up to four weeks off a marketing campaign – and to improve the price paid.”

In Melbourne, Ross Savas, the managing director of Kay & Burton, says he started styling homes 21 years ago. “But now it’s vital, absolutely vital,” he says. “Our market is finite so we’ve spent tens of millions of dollars orchestrating an overseas database and it’s very competitive so you need styling.

YOUR AGENT Ben Collier The Agency Eastern Suburbs

“Obviously, the location is wonderful – you just walk 100 metres and you’re at the village – but the very stylish look of the house, from an original Victorian terrace to a contemporary home, and quality of the renovation done earlier this year are also attractions.”

“There are a lot of people doing it too now, but you have to choose the right one for your market, your property, your individual style and what you’re trying to achieve. I think for every dollar you invest in styling, you’ll get $2 back.”

For top-of-the-range properties, the price might be as low as $5000 for a single room or smaller property, or closer to $200,000 for the whole house, depending on size, period and aim.

Blue & White Style Co charged around $100,000 to style a house in Randwick including re-upholstering a Regency daybed, moving in a selection of furniture to accentuate the owner’s favourite antique pieces and piano, cleaning, de-cluttering, sorting and even reorganising bookshelves to throw out the old year 12 textbooks.

“We were given carte blanche to give the house more formality and character,” says co-owner Georgie Curran. “In the conversations we had before and afterwards, it sounded as if it added 20 per cent onto the price of the property.

“The people who bought the house ended up buying all the furniture that we’d put in too, and the vendors had us style their next house, which was a joy. It’s about making everything cohesive and selling a lifestyle and a dream.”

MCM House’s founder Charlie Hinckfuss advises that, in a tighter market, when people are so time-poor and busy, it’s critical a stylist shows potential purchasers how they can live in a house – with the furniture company also offering a styling service. “There’s a lot of social media now about transforming property so people want the wow factor you can get from new tiles, a new room flow or even a great painting hung in a different place,” he says.

Our featured house this week, a threebedroom home in Sydney’s Woollahra, looks so casually glamorous that it feels as if you could just move in without changing a thing.

But at the higher end with, say, a $50-million house, people want all the bells and whistles, advises Nicole Langelier, creative director of

Design + Diplomacy styling company. “They want to be romanced, and want a performance, an experience of the property,” she says. “Often there’ll be a cocktail party or an event to showcase a property and add extra drama.

For elite properties, you’ll go that extra mile.”

In addition, an art consultant can choose and arrange the hire and installation of special artworks from galleries to add further gloss to the home. “We’re getting more and more people selling homes asking us to supply art,” says Art Pharmacy art consultant Hannah Molyneux.

“Good art can make a big impact, can look very impressive and can always draw the eye away from anything they might not like people to pay as much attention to.”

But, at base, there are still so many people who can’t visualise how wonderful a house could potentially be, and in a soft market it’s even more important to show them, agrees Natty Harper, Le Loft creative director.

“As a result, 90 per cent of the properties then sold for more than their asking price, maybe 10 per cent or 15 per cent more. In Kensington [Melbourne] last week a four-bedroom townhouse made 13 per cent more than they were asking. We were all very happy!”

Woollahra Sydney 17 Moncur Street $5.5 million

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Auction: June 29 Agent: The Agency Eastern Suburbs, Ben Collier 0414 646 476

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LIVING IN

27.529° S, 152.966° E

FIG TREE POCKET

They like to go with the flow in this Brisbane suburb, even if that means missing out on a local caffeine fix. B y K ATE FARRE LLY Throw around the catch-all word lifestyle and

What Fig Tree Pocket lacks in the caffeine

to mind alongside the more practical amenities

stakes it more than makes up for in its green

like supermarkets, health services and banks.

spaces and river frontage.

a suburb that doesn’t host these offerings.

Simon Kalinowski, chief executive of Mandalay Technologies, moved to Fig Tree Pocket four years ago and says while the nearest coffee is

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areas and playgrounds.

“The local community has great access to the Brisbane River and it’s a big lifestyle benefit of the area,” he says. “It’s got a semi-rural feel to it

“In city terms we’re quite removed from

and it appeals to Brisbane families wanting a bit

amenities but I actually prefer that,” he says.

of room to move with block sizes of 1000 square

“It means that on weekends there’s no traffic

metres-plus as well as acreages. You can have

and no crowds. I can take my son and my dog

the pool, the large home, a backyard for the kids.”

With the river forming much of the suburb’s

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lots of public parkland, boat ramps, barbecue

Family favourite

see anyone for that entire time.”

$3.4 million-$3.7 million

Jack Dixon of Dixon Family Estate Agents says

be happier.

for a walk for a couple of hours and I may not

Brisbane 13/680 Jesmond Road

the suburb has a strong connection to the river,

probably 3.5 kilometres from home, he couldn’t

Serenity in spades

Fig Tree Pocket

with a warm community feel for my family.”

images of hip cafes, bars and restaurants spring

But there are plenty of reasons to love living in

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For sale

Dixon says Fig Tree Pocket has a low turnover, with families often staying put for 10 to 20 years.

Agent: Dixon Family Estate Agents,

The suburb offers plenty of level land and none

John Fredericks 0408 006 882

boundary, Fig Tree Pocket is eight kilometres

of the character overlays you might find in the

This two-storey riverfront residence has soaring,

south-west of the Brisbane CBD with the peak-

inner-city suburbs, which means you can build

ceilings in the main living room as well as a

period commute taking between 20 and 30

your dream contemporary home.

feature fireplace and art deco chandelier, a cellar,

minutes.

Kalinowski grew up on a farm in Byron Bay and, after many years of living in inner-city Brisbane, he was hankering for more of a country lifestyle.

The local state school and Montessori School

media room, customised office and a pool.

are also key drawcards.

Kalinowski says he sees plenty of value in the suburb with its unusually low density.

Proximity to the languid Brisbane River is a major drawcard for

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he says. “It still had to be close to the city but I

fact that it’s locked off by the river gives it a

the people who live in

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wanted somewhere peaceful, close to schools

uniqueness which is only going to grow.”

Fig Tree Pocket.

to view listing

“I wanted a place that gave me a bit of space,”

“I can see in the longer term that the very

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YOU MAY LIKE ...

LUXE LIFE WATERFRONT

Hunters Hill

Bespoke shipshape opulence

Sydney 7a Woolwich Road $5.7 million-$6.2 million

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B y S TE PH E N CO RBY

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’ll let you in on a little secret. Usually, when someone invites you to review their $3.8 million super yacht, they don’t actually let you drive. It’s understandable in a way; you don’t let someone test their fire hoses on your $3.8 million house by setting it on fire.

Fortunately, however, car companies always let you drive their cars, even if they may at times look sick about it.

So the experience of being allowed to accelerate a Palm Beach 65 – a work of craftsmanship and joinery that feels like a Nordic mansion that floats – from a bobbing start to 35 knots came as a surprise in many ways.

Shifting so much bulk so quickly, over water, is quite unlike any other experience of speed I’ve ever enjoyed.

There’s a brief sense of the ocean laughing and lapping at your absurd presumption, and suddenly it is being rent in twain by the sheer power of the 1000 horsepower you have unleashed with a snap of your wrist.

It’s glorious and grand and only just the tiniest bit terrifying, but you do feel like a king (or a Norse god) standing at the helm, holding a finely carved and perfectly hefted tiller.

Incredibly, this vast machine can cruise at that speed all day, and were you to need more pace it has a maximum speed of 40 knots.

Eventually, you find yourself lolling back on the luxurious, timber-trimmed couch, built to the owner’s orders by this high-end Aussie ship maker, which doubles as the skipper’s seat.

Palm Beach refers to the lush locale in Sydney where the company was born. Its incredible boats are now built to order for the super rich around the world.

The chief executive of the company is no less a fanatical perfectionist and salty sea dog than Mark Richards, the multiple Sydney to Hobartwinning skipper of maxi yachts called Wild Oats. His attention to detail results in a boat that feels like it was designed for use by Elon Musk. Expensive, yet beautiful; over the top and yet homely. And unforgettably fun to drive.

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For sale Agent: McGrath Hunters Hill, Tracey Dixon 0412 443 352 The large and luxurious Palm Beach 65 is at risk of dwarfing your house if you moor it nearby.

Fortunately, that won’t be problem at this prestigious pile – the slipway to your private mooring is quite long, granting a sense of scale.

The Palm Beach 65 is as powerful as it is beautiful, capable

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of hitting 40 knots

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at full tilt.

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SUNSHINE COAST - LUXURY RAINFOREST RETREAT

7 Bed | 4 Bath | 7 Car | 1.85 ha

55 Rainforest Road, Tanawha Imagine the perfect rainforest setting to relax and reset each day… Built to take full advantage of its natural surroundings, this acreage retreat caters perfectly to modern families with careful consideration given to every detail from the ground up. Showcasing a floorplan of outstanding dimensions including multiple indoor/ outdoor living zones, a fully equipped gymnasium, cinema room, office, parents wing plus a completely separate guest house. For leisure pursuits, enjoy the resort style pool or the full-sized flood-lit tennis court; ideal for a bit of friendly competition. Extensive infrastructure allows for seamless family living, all located just 5 minutes to elite schooling and a short drive to famous coastal beaches. If you’re searching for a very special property that ticks every box, this is it.

• • • • • • •

Separate Parents & Children’s Wings 125m2 Two Bedroom Guest House Marble Kitchen, Miele/Banco Appliances Ducted A/C, 10KW Solar, Irrigated Gardens Visual Security & Multi-Zone Audio System Close to Elite Schools & Sporting Facilities Short Drive to Beaches & Major Shopping

Inspect by Appointment $2,600,000 Danny Redman

0418 731 588

Jonny Marshall Office

0481 102 039 07 5445 2844

www.kenguybuderim.com.au

120 Vasey Esplanade Defined by its own beach front and exotic tropical gardens, this timeless residence is truly a world class destination, easily accessible via the nearby Cairns International Airport. An illustrious Estate providing more than 890sqm (approx.) of living, including five opulent bedroom suites and a vast array of indoor and outdoor living areas ideal for entertaining and relaxing. The grounds include a magnificent swimming pool surrounded by open lawns with views over the Coral Sea and your private beach. Secluded and private yet close to restaurants and the nearby cafÊ society. Features include golf driving range, gym, reverse cycle air conditioning, two street frontages and ample garaging. Nearby attractions include the Great Barrier Reef, Port Douglas, Kuranda Markets, Cape Tribulation and the Daintree National Park. Possibly one of Australia´s great secrets, a tropical oasis with so much to enjoy on your doorstep. Land size 7,585sqm (approx.) with 135 metres (approx.) of beach frontage!

abercrombys.com.au

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EOI: Tuesday 30th July at 5pm View: By appointment 24/7 View: 120vaseyesplanade.com.au Contact: Jock Langley 0419 530 008 Office 9864 5300