Records show Maehashi paid $7 million for a Victorian-era house in Hunters Hill that was sold off-market by BresicWhitney’s Nicholas McEvoy just four years after the same house sold for $4.75 million.
Maehashi is a former Brookfield Multiplex senior executive who opted out of corporate life to focus on her love of cooking and developing her global hit website.
The blog was turned into a book in 2022 calledRecipeTin Eats:Dinner,which not only scored a place on the New York Times Best Seller list but was also last year awarded Book of the Year at the Australian Book Industry Awards – all while amassing 5 million followers across Facebook and Instagram alone.
Maehashi is coming from Mona Vale,where she purchased a house in 2019 for $3.5 million and sold it for $6 million to Clean Energy Partners’ Colin Liebmann and his wife,Julia.
Newcastle Nuts
Still with our star influencers,the Norris Nuts YouTube family have sold their Newcastle family home for $3.45 million,more than triple what they paid for it nine years ago.
The historic 1874-built house,Fernwood,was purchased in 2015 for $1.05 million by family matriarchBrooke Norris,wife of former Olympic swimmer and bronze medallist Justin Norris.
But Justin’s bronze Olympic medal has long since been overshadowed by the family’s online success alongside their six kidsSabre,Sockie,Biggy,Naz,Disco andCharm,whose Norris Nuts social media accounts total almost 12 million followers and subscribers on YouTube,TikTok and Instagram.
Thewhere they have bought two neighbouring houses for a total of almost $30 million and added a $10 million block of apartments up the road,creating a $40 million property portfolio in less than two years.
Original Bondi Beach
Entrepreneur-turned-online publisher-turned-producerJackie Maxted is selling one of Bondi Beach’s rare original sandstone cottages with a $7.25 million guide.
The historic house had scored a contemporary redesign by architectAndrew Burges when Maxted purchased it in 2015 for $4.55 million,soon after her Beauty Heaven Group was bought out by Bauer Media.
Maxted,who is best known more recently for producing the Netflix seriesChef’s Table,has since bought an apartment in Bronte,paying $4.825 million in 2022 toMandy andDaniel Simmons,a partner at one of Asia’s top-performing hedge funds OCP Asia.
Maxted’s Bondi Beach home goes to auction on April 13 through PPD’s Alexander Phillips.
Fun money dries up
The fun money market has thrown up a few questionable results for luxury holiday homes. Take this week’s house sale by UK private equity investorThomas Fussell, who copped a $1.1 million loss on his Pearl Beach holiday home,selling it for $6.6 million.
The co-founder of intelligence software Fast Search paid $7.7 million for the north-facing house in 2021,only to list it late last year with $8.5 million hopes through Coast Realty’s Stuart Gan.
Fussell and his wifeLouise may not be fussed about the loss,given they set a local record in August when they upgraded locally to $12.25 million digs on the beachfront.
The sale comes as Gan has set a non-beachfront record of $4 million up the road selling a contemporary retreat to mining industry executiveJulian Ludowici and his textile designer wifeBettina Moebius-Ludowici.
South of Sydney in Bundeena,the landmark beachfront pink house of stockbrokerTim Eustace andSalvatore Panui has sold for about $2.6 million – a loss on their purchase price of $2.85 million last year.
It was sold by PPD’s Debbie Donnelley after the New Zealand press revealed the couple had purchased a clifftop “castle” in North Taranki as their retreat away from their other historic home,Iona,the Darlinghurst mansion they bought in 2016 for $16 million fromBaz Luhrmann andCatherine Martin.
Clontarf classic
A sale campaign has started on the landmark Clontarf house long owned by the lateBarbara Fienberg,who,alongside her daughterAnna Fienberg, wrote the award-winning children’s seriesTashi.
The modernist house,designed by architectPeter Swan in the International style,was built in 1959 and updated in 1979 by architectBruce Rickard after it was purchased by the Fienberg family for $115,000.
Inside there are illustrations on the walls by the lateKim Gamble,who contributed illustrations to theTashi series until his death in 2016.
Fienberg and her sisterLinda have listed the family home with a $4.5 million guide with Marcus Lloyd-Jones,of Modern House.