Fashion veteran Joe Saba's Lorne trophy home remains unsold
Fashion designer Joe Saba has yet to sell his longtime Lorne holiday house, as vistors that packed the seaside town for the weekend's summer Pier to Pub ocean swimming event would have spotted in the local estate agency window.
Set in the hills above the Victorian coastal resort, Joe Saba and his wife, Marita, who built the house in 1984, want $1.5 million. Of the town's 100-plus sales last year, some 20 were at $1 million or more.
Tite Tattle recalls Joe spent $7100 in 1969 to buy the slightly larger holding at the northern outskirts of the township.
Architect Edgard Pirrotta built the coastal property after the town was ravaged by the Ash Wednesday fires.
Lorne has been a magnet for the semi-retired fashionist since his early days growing up in Geelong and Ballarat, but nowadays with teenage twin sons, Jack and Will the family are finding they are not using it enough.
The two-level, four-bedroom house at 4a Trade Winds Avenue features floor-to-ceiling glass opening to a timber deck. The organic, warm merbau timber-rich style of the home, along with its rounded lines, was constructed by Warwick Yates, a former player with Saba's beloved Geelong Football Club.
The 4,593 square metre property was scheduled for November auction through Jeremy Fox of RT Edgar, who with conjunctional agent, Ian Stewart of Great Ocean Road Real Estate, were then giving a $1.3 million plus price guidance. There had been $1.8 million ambitions this time last year.
The fashion legend Joseph Saba enjoyed some 30 years in the rag trade with tears and a standing ovation from his industry peers on his semi-retirement at the 2002 Melbourne Fashion Festival. He briefly moved into the Lorne abode full-time for six months with wife Marita and the boys after selling his self-titled fashion chain.
Title Tattle notes there is a nearby building allotment of 990 square metres with views of the surf below and of Louttit Bay that has been listed at $490,000 in a newly created sub-division with underground services and Surf Coast Shire approved building envelopes.
Trade Winds Avenue notched up a $1.65 million sale last year. It had been listed through Great Ocean Road Real Estate with a $1.8 million asking price.
Locals say 2013's highest known sale was the mortgagee sale of 264 Mountjoy Parade, a near beachfront holding totalling 1874 squre metres overlooking Louttit Bay and the pier. It cost $2,416,000. Set adjacent to the Grand Pacific, Yuruga came with landmark six bedroom,three bathroom double brick cottage with 80 squares of living space. It was bought by Angela Williams, the wife of merchant banker, David Williams of Kidder Williams, who also bought the adjoining 874 square metre Armytage Street vacant block for $862,400.
The outlay totalled $3,278,400.
Title Tattle recalls when offered in 2010 there was concept drawings for a 66 apartment residential/commercial development (STCA) for the consolidated holding. In 2011 there was an application for the subdivision of the combined blocks and and construction of seven dwellings. Currently two separate titles there were also certified plan of sub-division for Yuruga to have three separate allotments.
It had sold previously at around $4.8 million in 2001 given its then potential.
