Peter Higgins to build nine luxury houses on Marara, Avalon Beach estate

Peter Higgins, who co-founded mortgage lending giant Mortgage Choice, has secured development approval to create nine luxury homes on his Avalon Beach estate, Marara.

The homes, on the vast 12,660 square metres Cabarita Road waterfront, have been designed by local architect Mark Hurcum.

No doubt the gated community will be as classy as Mitala, the recently completed Hurcum-designed project round at Newport.

The homes will be priced from $5.5 million to $12.5 million, with Peter and wife Rebecca set to retain one.

Marara, translated to flying fish in Tahitian, was owned from 1930 by gynaecologist Sir Herbert Schlink, who died in 1962.

His widow, gynaecologist Meg Mulvey, resided there until she died in 2001.

The couple met in 1945, when Bertie was 62 and Meg 28.

The Careel Bay holding was sold to Higgins in 2003 for $15 million, with another block added costing $3.2 million. 

This article was first published in the Sunday Telegraph.