Eclectic Rae's for sale as coal tycoon David Knappick picks up Watermark at Wategos
Acclaimed for its eclectic European-styled interiors amid lush gardens with sweeping ocean views, Rae's on Wategos Beach at Byron Bay has been put on the market for the first time in 20 years.
It's been listed by the entrepreneur Vincent Rae.
Located on a prized 1,049-square-metre beachfront Marine Parade block, the property is set for October 26 auction through Ray White Hotels agents Tony Bargwanna and Andrew Jolliffe in conjunction with Gerald Delany of Kay & Burton in Melbourne. The agents have declined to give any indicative pricing.
The agents expect interest from hoteliers, but it would mostly likely attract considerable residential buyer interest. There is recent approval for a new underground car park, cocktail bar, lift, sub penthouse, spa area and a 200 square metre entertaining terrace.
It charges between $600 to $1380 a night.
Rae's is opposite the 1,406-square-metre record-setting holding bought by property developer Danny Goldberg for $15.68 million in boomtime 2006.
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Marine Parade's most recent beachfront sale has been the Watermark at Wategos (pictured above), a duplex apartment building on a 656-square-metre block, which sold quietly earlier this year for $9 million through Graham Dunn of Byron Bay Property Sales to David Knappick, who made his fortune from his shareholding in Felix Resources.
Rae's guesthouse was built by Ruth Harris who established a restaurant there called Argentine Ant Cantina and then La Belle Epoque, neither of which were especially successful although Liberace did play the piano at the then French medieval-styled mansion around which Salvador Dalí had a hand in its early 1970s tropical garden design, presumably a sketch or two done from afar.
Wanting $2 million at its June 1994 auction, Harris later sold for $1,375,000 in 1994 to Rae, who developed it into an iconic luxury retreat once rated by Conde Nast Traveler magazine in its "Top 25 Hotels in the World" in 1997.
Over the years its guests have included Richard Branson, Harvey Keitel, Gwyneth Paltrow, Kate Winslet, Tom Cruise, Meg Ryan, Russell Crowe, Keith Richards, Pink, Elle Macpherson and Nicole Kidman.
Rae says that at 50 he's ready to move on.
"I've had a lot of interest over years but I've never wanted to sell," he told News Ltd.
"I've had discussions with Richard Branson over the last year or two, he loves the place.
"You would love to think it will continue on. She is a great old dame, that building.
"But at the end of the day I'm looking for the best result, and if a Packer came in and wanted to pay top money and turn it into a house I could walk away with a smile on my face."
