Golden girl Suzie O'Neill basks in Cabarita Beach sale
The NSW north coast Cabarita Beach holiday home of swimming great Susie O’Neill and her doctor husband Cliff Fairley was passed in at weekend auction, but sold soon after for $3 million to a Singapore-based expat.
The Olympic gold medallist bought the two-storey, four-bedroom beachfront house in 2003 for $2.3 million.
The house has been earning around $25,000 annually as a holiday rental, with Christmas rentals securing around $3200 a week, while off season sits at $1700 a week.
It would achieve $700 to $750 per week on a permanent rental basis.
Lorna Savage and Brent Savage of LS Properties had the Cypress Crescent offering having secured $2.95 million early last year for a modern home not far away.
"The astute purchaser may choose to maintain this bit of 'Caba history' and hold onto their fabulous investment as is, or build their architectural dream home to sit comfortably among the existing residences.
"They will enjoy it for years to come," Savage said.
The world award-winning, boutique hotel Halcyon House is just a few homes down.
“We preferred the quiet lifestyle and village feel that Cabarita provides,” said O'Neill, who was known by the moniker Madame Butterfly.
“We had closely watched the tightly-held street of Cypress Crescent and after many years had an opportunity to buy in 2003.
“When the kids were young we would spend a lot of long weekends there and most of our holidays enjoying the beach lifestyle, nippers and surfing.”
Swimming’s golden girl and mother of two said it was an intentional move not to buy a holiday house with a pool - with the location just metres from the sand.
The 607 square metre property has a wide veranda overlooking the beach as well as a modern kitchen, two bathrooms and wooden floors.
O’Neill said the decision to sell was a difficult one for her family, but with a busy growing family and many sporting and extra curricular commitments in Brisbane, they were not using the house much.
“It’s time for another family to get the same enjoyment," she said.
The buyer had recently holidayed at the nearby Horizons motel on the strip.