August 2012
36 posts
9 tags
Over Capitalising? Or a Savvy Flip on Paddo's...
A very narrow (4m wide) terrace on the flip-favourite Hopetoun Street in Paddington is to auction with low-$2mil expectations. The home sold less than one year ago in October 2011 for $1.5m. Quite quickly, the new owners acted on an existing $400k DA application and gut renovated the tiny terrace to an alarmingly high spec. Granted, most of the additions are stunning: exposed brick and high-end...
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Glynn Gilling-Designed 'Whit-Hame' in Warrawee to...
Whit-Hame’s position at the corner of Bangalla and Cherry Street in Warrawee led architect Glynn Gilling to design two distinct frontages (above and below).
Whit-Hame, a heritage-listed 6-bedroom manor home designed by Glynn Gilling will auction in September with surprisingly modest $3m+ hopes. The English-born architect was one of Sydney’s most prolific and desirable architect of...
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Update: Warne's Brighton Mansion to List for...
We were unable to verify Warne’s listing of his Brighton mansion, but Chris Vedelago and Cameron Houston at The Age have dug up the scoop, saying that word on the street is that the cricket great is listing his Brighton mansion ‘Kilkerran’ for between $15m and $20m, meaning that we very well may have a new record holder for the suburb. Now we eagerly await some interior photos...
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Summer Must Be Near: First Palm Beach Trophy...
‘Orcades’, a P&O style home that sits on a gigantic half-acre cliff top parcel in Palm Beach, has hit the market with $6m+ expectations. Margie Blok reports that the property has not traded since it was purchased in the 1970s by Michael Callaghan, a Channel Seven executive. Blok goes on to state that the home has played host to such luminaries as “Benny Hill, Des...
5 tags
Radical Renovation in South Yarra for $2m+
A terrace on the highly desirable Murphy Street is listed with expectations around $2m+. The home last traded hands in 1994 for $405k and has been recently transformed to include top-of-the-line appliances and materials. The green landscaping in the front shifts the focus away from the awkward off-street car parking spots. However, is the renovation radical enough to justify such lofty price...
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Shane Warne May or May Not Sell His Brighton Manse
The UK’s Daily Mail is reporting that Shane Warne has listed his c1885 Brighton mansion ‘Kilkerran’ at 6 William Street for sale. Warne purchased the property in December 2009 for $7.55m. He then acquired next-door neigbhour #8 $1m in 2009, only to demolish the home to make way for a subterranean garage, a pool branded with his cricket number (23) and the migration of his...
8 tags
Iconic 'Minimbah House' (née 'Dulcamah') in the...
Minimah House above; lookalike Woollahra House (now demolished) in Point Piper, below.
Minimbah House, a Victorian Italianate mansion built from 1875-77 by architect Benjamin Blackhouse, in the Hunter Valley is set to go to auction. The 45-room colonial mansion in Whittingham was last purchased for “more than $3mil” in 2007 by Anthony Gee who attempted in vain to turn the homestead...
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Paddington's Forever Listing Still Floating...
1a Bates Avenue, a unique double-fronted cottage with a corrugated iron roof that rests on a spacious (for Paddington) 335sqm parcel last sold for $1.152m in June 2002 and has seemingly spent more time on the market then off since then. By our anecdotal count, Laing Simmons, Snowden Lane and Ray White Double Bay have all tried to sell the house in vain for prices in the mid- to high-$1mils. Now,...
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Floor Plan Porn: 15 Plans of TV Homes
The generally impossible floor plan of the Friends apartments in the West Village, NYC (above). And the slightly more plausible Seattle apartment from Frasier (below).
BuzzFeed has collected 15 floor plans from famous TV shows. Check them out here. It’s kinda sorta cool.
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A Rare Del Rio Listing in Elizabeth Bay Wants $4m+
The ‘Del Rio’, a stylish Spanish Mission apartment block, graces an enviable harbourfront Billyard Avenue location in Elizabeth Bay. The building was designed by J. Spencer Stansfield in 1928 and (surprisingly?) was considered to be the instigation for the popularisation of the Spanish Mission style in Sydney, despite the vernacular use in Leslie Wilkinson homes for several years...
7 tags
Idiosyncratic Henry Budden-Designed Hunters Hill...
‘Kurrowah’, a Henry Budden-designed home at 74 Alexandra Street in Hunters HIll came on the market yesterday for the first time in 30 years with a $4.5m ask. At first, it seems like an intimidating price for a home that lacks water frontage and only can stake claim to obstructed water views. The interiors are nothing to write home about (save for an original and unique barrel vault...
5 tags
Reinvented Stables Make for Quick Flip in East...
Located on a cobblestoned back alley behind a row of historic Victorian town residences (one of which being a recent Radical Terrace featured property) in East Melbourne, an extensively renovated brick stables has listed with expectations in the low- to mid-$2mils. The home last sold in a liveable, but uninspiring state in July 2011 for $1.13m. In the last 13 months, the owners have quickly...
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Troubled Frankston Manse - 'Bruce...
A 1926 Spanish Revival mansion in Frankston built for former Australian Prime Minister Viscount Bruce has listed as a mortgagee sale with expectations in the low-$2mils. The heritage-listed home may or may not have been purchased in Oct 2002 for $895k (we can’t confirm) and was subsequently subdivided to include 10 villas. These 10 villas, and likely the manor home itself, were deemed...
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A Paddington Corner Shop Reinvented as Live/Work...
What was purchased in June 2004 as a derelict corner shop on Paddington’s compact Little Comber Street for $950k has been reinvented as a 2-bedroom, 3-bathroom (with a car spot!) urban sanctuary. The ground floor features a living room and study opening up to a courtyard that is easily used as a studio. The first floor holds two bedrooms with ensuite and the newly constructed top floor...
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Fast Flip in Hawthorn's Grace Park Estate Wants...
A Victorian home in Hawthorn’s Grace Park Estate is back on the market after undergoing an extensive renovation and extension by Dean Dugdale (whose lack of a web presence doesn’t help the Radical Terrace). The c1898 Victorian villa features an iconic (and desirable) Hawthorn brick. However, it didn’t always have that now-iconic coating. The home sold with a painted brick...
8 tags
Modernist in Kew Returns to Market for Same Price
Remember how we said Kew is - weirdly - the heart of modernism in Melbourne? Well, enter 12 Dunlop Avenue. The modernist home in the Studley Park precinct of Melbourne, sold in May 2011 for $2.215m. Now, only 16 months after it sold to its current owners, the home is to auction with expectations around the same price as it last sold. The home is a stunner, by all stretches of the imagination....
13 tags
A Royal Terrace Listing in Fitzroy for $3m+
A recent sales history of Royal Terrace with today’s listing occupying the far right end-terrace (above); an 1868 image from a similar vantage point reveals only minor changes occurred over the past 150 years, save for the c1880s addition of urns and rosettes to the parapet in an attempt to “modernise” the simple Regency facade during extravagant Boom Time Melbourne (below).
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7 tags
Bayview Modern to Auction for $2m+
A four-bedroom cantilevered home designed by Monckton Fyfe Architects in Bayview is set to auction for $2m+. Ryan Petrie of LJ Hooker Mona Vale has the Pittwater-close listing. The home at 13 Noolinga Road last sold as a tear-down in Feb 2004 for $1m. The owners toyed around with a listing briefly in 2011 and then again with Expressions of Interest beginning this April through LJ Hooker Newport....
8 tags
Ubberholme - A Rare and Restored Camberwell Estate...
‘Ubberholme’, a historically significant home in the Prospect Hill Estate of Camberwell has listed with $5m+ hopes through Woodards agents Jason Hearn and Lou Lihari. The abode has been extensively renovated since last trading hands in December 2004 for $2.31m. The owners picked up the neighbouring home at 51 Prospect Hill for $845k and subsequently demolished it, providing...
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Edwardian on Etham Avenue, Darling Point Wants...
The Etham Estate’s subdivision, c1901. Subject property is labelled “30”.
Etham Avenue is one of the last bastions of single family villas in the now apartment-dominated suburb of Darling Point. It wasn’t always this way. The Etham Estate, an elegant Victorian Italianate mansion resting on over 40 harbourfront acres, was subdivided in 1900. The infill development of the...
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Mid-Century Modern in Castlecrag for $3m+
Castelcrag, the Walter Burley Griffin-planned harbourside suburb of Sydney, is chock-full of mid-century modern homes. One such prime example is 13 The Redoubt which listed this week after undergoing an extensive renovation spanning the last several years. Interior designer Tina De Salis purchased the home for $2.59m in November 2009 and subsequently modernised the property with plenty of 1960s...
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Boom Time Mansion 'Rathgar' (Falsely Attributed to...
An 1886 Boom Time mansion in Hawthorn East is to auction late in September through Abercromby’s agents Jock Langley and Andrew Harlock with $5m+ expectations. The agents are flaunting its architectural pedigree saying that is “thought to be designed by John Edmund Burke”. However, the Radical Terrace found no such links between the home now listed and the Melbourne architect....
5 tags
Modern Farmhouse on Melbourne Urban Fringe To...
‘Frogmore’, a modern take on an Australian homestead with three distinct pavilions is to auction through First National Neilson Partners agent Peter Watson in September with $2.5m+ expectations. The four-bedroom, two-bathroom (that’s not a good ratio) home features a unique and tasteful exterior aesthetic with rather lacklustre interiors. The views stretch all the way to the...
7 tags
Double Bay Apartment of Many Flips Now Flipping...
Unit 2 in the harbourfront Double Bay block of 3 units ”villas” at 17 Gladswood Garens has traded hands many times since first developed in 1990. However, since its last sale of $5.8m less than two years ago, a Nick Tobias-designed renovation suddenly has given the apartment new price aspirations. According to Domain.com.au, the slightly above average unit wants $9m+, which...
7 tags
Stanmore's Roller Coaster Record Setter Back on...
Essington at 34-36 Gordon Crescent today (above) and an original advertising parcel map dated 1885, 3 years prior to the home’s construction (below).
Gordon Crescent, hugging the railroad easement in the suburb of Stanmore, is a unique pocket of Victorian manor homes in the Inner West. The developers likely built a string of imposing homes facing the newly built railroad tracks to...
7 tags
Walter Butler Designed Toorak Estate Lists for...
Michael Gibson and Matt Davis of Kay & Burton have nabbed yet another Toorak trophy listing. This time it’s ‘Halstead’ at 12 Lansell Road. Halstead was constructed in 1916 for Frances Clements in an Arts & Crafts style with a parapeted roof, projecting eave, and paired columns that reveal a South Asian/Dutch Colonial influence rarely found in Melbourne. Until...
10 tags
One of Birchgrove's Earliest Homes Lists for...
Birchgrove is arguably the most desirable suburb of Sydney west of the Harbour Bridge. The peninsular suburb is named after the 1810 home of Lt John Birch - Birch Grove House; that two-storey sandstone home sat on 30 acres and was the first residence on the Balmain Peninsula. In the below 1855 subdivision map of the Balmain Estate, Birch Grove House rests in relative isolation on the southern...
8 tags
A Long (and Prestigious?) Address in the Hills:...
Million Dollar sales on Governor Phillip Place, West Pennant Hills
To most Sydneysiders, any reference to “The Hills [District]” would conjure up images of mega churches, mega houses, and mega-new developments. Most of these images hold some truth; and, even though The Hills region was in fact one of the first to be settled in Sydney, the vast majority of infill development that...
6 tags
Meet the Manse That Wants To Top Templestowe's...
Templestowe, home to some of Melbourne’s largest and most Western Australian-inspired modern mansions, now has a new home on the market looking to break the suburb’s property record. It was back in 2006 that a “French Chateaux Revival” manse at 327-329 Church Road sold for $7.2m (it later sold at a loss in pre-GFC 2008 for $6.9m); now with a $7m+ price expectations, Chris...
7 tags
A Modern Home Lists in Victorian Paddington for...
One of the joys of Paddington’s precarious Council line drawings is that the area south of Oxford Street belongs to the City of Sydney and the area north of Oxford is situated in the Woollahra Council. For different folks this can mean many different things, but today, it means we’re treated to a house whose Development Application would not have stood a chance inside the strict...
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“In spite of the abundance of large and fine-looking buildings [in Melbourne],...”
– R.E.N. Twopeny, “Town Life in Australia,” 1883
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Tacky Castle Cove Estate Still Unsold, Now Comes...
Last time we heard about the Neerim House Estate on a bluff above Middle Harbour in Castle Cove in March, Jonathan Chancellor heard buzz of a sale in the vicinity of $11m. Well, that deal must have fallen through the home’s post-modern cracks, because the listing is now updated with an official price: $13m.
The home at 17 Neerim Road first sold (for land value, presumably) in 1987 for...
6 tags
This $3m+ Potts Point Home That Just Won't Sell...
…and we don’t really know why.
Since 14 St Neot Avenue last sold in Aug 2007 for $3.0m, it’s almost spent more time on the market than off. Starting in Nov 2009, the 3-bedroom home shopped around offers just shy of $4m through Richardson & Wrench agents Jason Boon and Geoff Cox. By February 2010, the home was removed from market during the winter months, only to be...
