Rae's at Wategos sold in the hour before its auction

Jonathan ChancellorOctober 25, 2012

Rae's on Wategos Beach at Byron Bay has been sold in the hour before its scheduled auction on Friday October 26. No official sale price or buyer details have been released, other than to say the accepted offer was consistent with the vendor expectations. Property Observer gathers it was snapped up by an off-shore non-expatriate buyer.

It was on the market for the first time in 20 years, having been listed by the entrepreneur Vincent Rae.

Located on a prized 1,049-square-metre beachfront Marine Parade block, the property was set for auction through Ray White Hotels agents Tony Bargwanna and Andrew Jolliffe in conjunction with Gerald Delany of Kay & Burton in Melbourne.The auction was scheduled for 2pm but following last minute negotiations, the auctioneer Andrew Bell, of Ray White Surfers Paradise, announced that the property had sold. "It's a momentous day," he told the large waiting curious crowd.

The selling agents have declined to give any indicative pricing, although the local paper says it fetched more than $21 million.

The agents expected interest from hoteliers, but it would mostly likely attract considerable residential buyer interest. There is recent approval for a new underground car park, cocktail bar, lift, sub penthouse, spa area and a 200 square metre entertaining terrace.

It charges between $600 to $1380 a night.

The purchase has apparently no given any indication of intended usage.

Rae's is opposite the 1,406-square-metre record-setting holding bought by property developer Danny Goldberg for $15.68 million in boomtime 2006.

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Marine Parade's most recent beachfront sale has been the Watermark at Wategos (pictured above), a duplex apartment building on a 656-square-metre block, which sold quietly earlier this year for $9 million through Graham Dunn of Byron Bay property Sales to David Knappick, who made his fortune from his shareholding in Felix Resources.

Rae's guesthouse was built by Ruth Harris who established a restaurant there called Argentine Ant Cantina and then La Belle Epoque, neither of which were especially successful although Liberace did play the piano at the then French medieval-styled mansion around which Salvador Dalí had a hand in its early 1970s tropical garden design, presumably a sketch or two done from afar.

Wanting $2 million at its June 1994 auction, Harris later sold for $1,375,000 in 1994 to Rae, who developed it into an iconic luxury retreat once rated by Conde Nast Traveler magazine in its "Top 25 Hotels in the World" in 1997.

Over the years its guests have included Richard Branson, Harvey Keitel, Gwyneth Paltrow, Kate Winslet, Tom Cruise, Meg Ryan, Russell Crowe, Keith Richards, Pink, Elle Macpherson and Nicole Kidman.

Rae says that at 50 he's ready to move on - possibly moving to Barcelona while keeping his involvement in mining interests in Papua New Guinea and  a project in Bali.

"I've had a lot of interest over years but I've never wanted to sell," he told News Ltd in the lead up to the auction.

"I've had discussions with Richard Branson over the last year or two, he loves the place.

"You would love to think it will continue on. She is a great old dame, that building.

"But at the end of the day I'm looking for the best result, and if a Packer came in and wanted to pay top money and turn it into a house I could walk away with a smile on my face."

Property Observer gleans Richard Branson was not however its buyer.

Peter Metzner, the publicity spokesperson for Rae's, has said he didn't know whether the new owner would keep it as a hotel or convert it into a private residence.

Jonathan Chancellor

Jonathan Chancellor is one of Australia's most respected property journalists, having been at the top of the game since the early 1980s. Jonathan co-founded the property industry website Property Observer and has written for national and international publications.

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