First look: New luxury Sydney Harbour apartments planned for Kirribilli

The tightly held Kirribilli Avenue, which runs from the Harbour Bridge through to the Prime Minster’s Kirribilli House, is set for a rare new luxury apartment development.

Plans have been filed for eight high-end apartments, which will see a the restoration of an inter-war building at 77 Kirribilli Avenue adjoin a new three-level flat building at 75 Kirribilli Avenue. The latter was one of the first buildings in the area, according to town planner Urbis.

That will be demolished and make way for a new five-level building which will home a communal gym, wine room, and five of the eight apartments, including a two-level penthouse which features a rooftop terrace with spa. Next door will be a cinema on the ground level, and a further three units.

There will be seven three-bedroom apartments and one two-bedroom unit on offer in the $9.3 million development designed by EMBECE Studio, in collaboration with GMU Urban Design and Architecture. It will front the the heritage-listed Mary Booth Reserve, which means views of the Harbour Bridge can never be built out. Views of the Opera House are limited, due to the longstanding building next door.

In their plans submitted to the North Sydney council, EMBECE said the the ambitions of the project is to provide eight new high end apartments which are a respectful and elegant addition to the local conservation area, the street and the harbour front. 

"A unique site location on the harbour which creates distinctive opportunities for the built form and residential amenity 

"The site is a waterfront site and bounded by two distinctively different urban conditions of Kirribilli Avenue and Mary Booth Reserve. These interfaces in the broader context of the harbour location create important considerations for how the building character and residential amenity respond to its setting.

The Urban Design Report submitted by GMU Urban Design and Architecture said the proposal seeks to deliver elegant, contemporary architectural outcomes that are contextually appropriate, to complement the site and desirable neighbourhood characteristics.

"To the street, the proposed development presents as an existing inter-war building adjacent to a new three-storey residential flat building with high-quality integrated landscape outcomes to complement the streetscape setting.

"The new building at No. 75 presents to the street with simple, elegant contemporary forms paraphrasing the proportions of neighbouring inter-war walk-ups with decorative masonry details, expressed bays and vertical articulation.

"The copper roof is a visual reference to the pitched roof forms found in the area with its profile carefully sculpted to maintain a contemporary elegant expression and minimise visual bulk to the public domain and neighbouring sites."

Town planner Urbis found that 75 Kirribilli Avenue was originally a part of an estate containing the early Victorian cottage, ‘The Dingle’.

"This building was one of the first buildings in the area and was constructed in a vernacular fashion of salvaged metal and other building materials from the Crimean War in the 1850s5 resulting in the colloquial name, the ‘Iron House’. By the late 1800s, the Dingle had its own underground water Reservoir, wharf, boathouse, and bathing-house."

Urbis said overall the proposed redevelopment of the subject site will respect the significance of the Kirribilli HCA and will ensure that there are no negative impacts on the vicinity heritage items in the area.

The landscaping has been handled by FORM Architects, who say the landscape design unifies the two buildings through a cohesive garden setting which extends from Kirribilli Avenue and down into the borrowed landscape of the Reserve and the Harbour.

Kirribill Avenue, which is lined with original apartment blocks with gun-barrel views of the Harbour Bridge, has only seen one apartment sale this year and just seven in 2022, which included a $13.5 million sale of a three-bed, 2000-built sub-penthouse with Opera House and Harbour Bridge views.

Fast Facts:

• Address: 75 Kirribilli Avenue, Kirribilli NSW 2061
• Land size: 1038.1 sqm
• Building Height: 12m
• LGA: North Sydney Council
• Apartments: 8
• 1 x 2-bedroom apartment
• 7 x 3-bedroom apartment
• Parking spaces: 14
• Estimated cost of work: $9,383,106