Oscar Niemeyer-inspired Apollo Gate, Cronulla sells
One of Cronulla’s most admired homes, which topped out on a $4.2 million unsuccessful bid at its early 2014 auction, has been sold for $4.3 million to Shane Noble, the boss at Green's Foods.
The vendor builder Tony Bittar wanted $4.5 million for the ever futuristic Apollo Gate, an icon of the Sutherland Shire's waterfronts since the 1970s.
Nicknamed the Cronulla spaceship house, or the White House, it has a reputation that dates back to its completion, with its Reuben Lane design motivated by spiritual and architectural links to Mediterranean villages and with whitewashed buildings clinging to the coastlines.
It first changed hands for $185,000 in 1978 when sold by the Breen family who owned the Metropolitan Sand Company at Cronulla.
It featured in NSW Builder magazine, the official journal of the Master Builders' Association, in May 1975 (pictured below). It was built by CH & CR Ellis with spiralling western red cedar ceiling.
Source: NSW Builder, May 1975.
Reuben Lane, who died in 2012, was inspired by the work of his mentor Oscar Niemeyer, the architect of the capital city of Brazil, Brasilia.
The property was marketed as a "one-off".
The Cowra Place, Cronulla property had been renovated extensively since sold at $3.2 million in May 2013.
It offers five bedrooms plus study, a double garage and two car spaces and guest quarters. There's an atrium lounge, an internal spa, and landscaped gardens. Its four bathrooms’ original tiles are sourced from the same suppliers as the Sydney Opera House.
The house, on a double block at the end of a cul-de-sac that overlooks Salmon Haul Bay, just inside the mouth of Port Hacking, sold through new agents, Highland Property Agents.
Shane Healy sold elsewhere in Cronulla for $2.45 million late last year.