Author Lisa Heidke ponders new chapter on the South Coast

The best-selling author Lisa Heidke is contemplating a sea change to the South Coast.

It follows the sale of her long-held Pymble home for $5.18 million.

Proud to call its chick-lit, Heidke, the author of six contemporary fiction novels, has been living in the North Shore home for 16 years with her family who were instragamed earlier this year decluttering the home into skips.

She paid $2.64 million in 2002, having previously been based in Sydney's inner west.

Heidke blogged one minute she was living in the inner west, the next she was "surprised one morning to wake up and find myself with three children and living on the North Shore".

She's yet to confirm on her blog her next move, but it will certainly involve downsizing. 

Over her long ownership and in between novels and creative writing teaching, Heidke extensively renovated the six bedroom, four bathroom 1900s Federation home, giving particular focus to restoring the terraces and adding a new heated swimming pool and spa.

The full brick home has a wine cellar, billiard room and a home cinema.

A tennis court sits in the 2020 square metre grounds.

Her most recently published book, The Callahan Split in 2015, was billed as one about love, loss, lust, and plenty of sisterly rivalry in the tennis tournament world.

She wrote it in her so-called “handbag room".

McGrath Pymble agent William Robinson sold the home. 

The $5 million plus sale was easily a Wellesley Road record, topping the $3.17 million paid for a 1980s home in 2015.

The family are expected to spend more time at their Gerroa clifftop that they've owned for two decades.

The Melbourne-borm Heidke grew up in Brisbane but came to Sydney aged 22 after a stint in London and worked in book and magazine publishing.

She has released a number of novels, with This Wife's Life and Lucy Springer's Story both shortlisted for the Varuna/HarperCollins Manuscript Awards.

This article first appeared in The Daily Telegraph.