Channel Ten's The Bachelor heads to Hunters Hill, leaving La Joie de Vivre behind
Clifton, the heritage listed Hunters Hill mansion, is the home of the next series of The Bachelor, replacing La Joie de Vivre at Bayview.
The reality television show on the struggling Network Ten is currently being filmed in the stunning mansion where the bachelor, Perth estate agent and property auctioneer Blake Garvey will hand out his roses.
“When you first meet Blake you’ll be struck by his height (6’5”) and his deep baritone voice (he’s been likened to Barry White),” the Acton Real Estate Carine Glades’ website suggests. Before the sometime model headed west to Sydney, he had two listings in the 6065 postcode from the office that services Carine, Duncraig, Padbury and Hillarys.
Clifton last sold in 1993 for $2.75 million to a investment syndicate which soon had the 5,124 square metre near-waterfront estate with a lawn tennis court available for $1,500 a week rental. It is not known officially what The Bachelor 's production company, Shine Australia, are paying the very large McCaffrey family who have been in residence, but $25,000 a week has been speculated.
Security plus Fresh Catering trucks were on the Woolwich Road driveway yesterday.
The 120-year-old Hunters Hill property, listed by the National Trust, was previously the matrimonial home of the late Michael Grace and his wife Carol, of the Grace retail family.
It is on a battle-axe Woolwich Road block with its privacy even from the riverfront protected by the 140-year-old Port Jackson fig trees.
The mansion was built by a former Sydney Stock Exchange chairman, John Ryder Jones in the 1890s.
It was purchased by the Howie family - pre-eminent Sydney builders - on Jones's death in 1919 and they remained for two generations.
Sir Archibald Howie carried out extensive works in the 1930s, leaving an art deco legacy which included a Philippine mahogany-panelled dining room and an Egyptian bathroom.
The Grace family purchased Clifton in 1974 for $500,000.
Following Clifton's sale, the 7,000 square metre property was subdivided, with two of Clifton's five blocks sold to the Tieck family for $180,000 in early 1975.
La Joie de Vivre has been sitting unloved by buyers above Sydney’s northern beaches since 2010. The first Australian season of The Bachelor was filmed at the stunning mansion last July.
It's the home of the former freight tycoon Gregory Poche and wife Kayvan Norton at 68 Minkara Road, Bayview.
The lavish French provincial mansion sits among spotted gum trees, with views from its floor to ceiling windows. The residence was built for Beirut industrialist Agob Dellalian who sold it for $7 million in 2003.
Gregory Poche and wife Kay van Norton bought the property for $10 million in 2003 through Claudio Marcolongo of LJ Hooker Avalon, and Christie's agent Ken Jacobs. La Joie de Vivre, meaning the ‘joy of living’ in French, catches impressive 180-degree view of Pittwater.
The couple have relocated to Little Manly Cove.