Former home of Jennifer Hawkins in North Curl Curl is going under the hammer with a $8 million price guide
Former Miss Universe Jennifer Hawkins is best known for her career in front of the fashion photographer’s camera, but it is through flipping high-end real estate that she and her builder husband Jake Wall have made a fortune.
“They certainly build a good house. You can’t fault them for that,” says Phillip Wright of Stone Real Estate.
Wright is referring to one of the couple’s earliest projects, set on the clifftop at the Windy Dropdown estate at North Curl Curl, on Sydney’s Northern Beaches.
The photogenic couple bought the land in 2010 for $1.375 million and commissioned a striking, three-level residence by architect Koichi Takada, which was built by Wall’s development and design company, J Group.
It was a winning combination that was replicated in the couple’s ensuing projects.
First on nearby Pitt Road, where the couple bought a 1960s-era three-bedroom house for $1.66 million in 2013 and sold it after a designer rebuild for $5.235 million in 2016 to cricketing golden couple Alyssa Healy and Mitchell Starc.
Then there was their largest project, the Koichi Takada designed Paloma trophy home in Newport.
It was built on a consolidated parcel of adjoining waterfront blocks purchased for $4 million in 2014 on what was formerly the Westworth Estate of the late Liberal politician Bill Wentworth.
It was a no-expense-spared build that involved a large-scale excavation of the 3360-square-metre site and that won a Master Builder’s Award for J Group Projects.
When it sold last year for $24.5 million to tech billionaire Mike Cannon-Brookes and his wife Annie it not only set a Newport record but claimed a new high for the Northern Beaches.
Wall and Hawkins have started on their next project, a rebuild of what was formerly the Rocca Bella estate in Whale Beach, long owned by the late Dame Joan Sutherland.
The couple bought the property last year for $6.95 million from arts patron Lorraine Tarabay and have already lodged plans to demolish the house and build a luxury, three-level residence perched on the clifftop with a swimming pool and basketball court at a cost of $3 million.
Back in North Curl Curl, their former home in the Windy Dropdown estate has returned to the market seven years after Wall and Hawkins sold it for $4.1 million to Fortescue Metals chief executive Elizabeth Gaines and her husband Kevin Manuel.
Gaines and Manuel sold it in 2017 for $5.2 million when they moved to Perth, and it returns to the market with a newly installed outdoor kitchen and an $8 million guide.
