This article is from the Australian Property Journal archive
FORMER backpacker playground turned influencer and celebrity hotspot Byron Bay has just seen its most expensive house sale ever, with a luxe three-bedroom hinterland home trading for $26 million.
According to Nine, the Suffolk Park property, spanning 16 hectares, has been bought by beneficial trust Jersey Investment, linked with the late Bill Roche and his wife Imelda Roche, who together established beauty business Nutrimetics. Roche’s daughter, Clare Mulham is tipped to take the keys.
On the sell side was Fiona Toltz Gower, daughter of late stockbroker Michael Toltz and Joren Gower. The Gowers had undertaken a major rebuild, land-clearing and landscaping project in their nine years of ownership, having paid $2 million for the property.
It now has a three-bedroom residence with swimming pool, cabana, media room, fire pit, in-ground trampoline, and heated spa. Until recently been offered as a holiday let.
Pacifico Property’s Christian Sergiacomi negotiated the sale, which sets a record for the North Coast’s lifestyle property market. The previous record was Rip Curl co-founder Brian Singer’s $22 million acquisition of a house at Wategos Beach two years ago, while the hinterland record set by an $18.5 million Brunswick Heads purchase by Helen Sali, wife of Radek Sali, the former chief executive officer of vitamins company Swisse.
On the eve of COVID, Byron Bay’s median house price was $1.4 million, before it skyrocketed during the pandemic as more Australians sought a seachange, while the town is now a go-to destination for influencers and Hollywood A-listers such as Chris Hemsworth. The median price now sits at $3.1 million, according to realestate.com.au.
Elsewhere in the Byron Bay hinterland, a 40-acre rural estate on in Coorabel has been shopped around with a private tag of about $30 million.
Sergiacomi, together with CBRE’s Wayne Bunz, has been marketing the former golf course Belongil Beach site, with 1.1 kilometres of beach frontage, with expectations of $160 million.
The town’s boom has seen a roaring commercial property market too. Nine boss and media executive David Gyngell offloaded Byron Bay’s Hotel Brunswick for a whopping $68 million and Melbourne duo Scott Didier and Scott Emery bought the Great Northern and Lateen Lane properties for $80 million., while billionaire Andrew “Twiggy” Forrest and his wife Nicola splashed out $30 million for a luxury wellness retreat outside of Byron Bay from late film and music star Olivia Newton-John.
