From backpackers and billionaires to surfers and sunbathers, the charms of Australia’s most famous stretch of sand knows no bounds. Who wouldn’t want to live in this year-round holiday hotspot?
Certainly my partner and I thought so when we first embarked on a search for our very own Bondi Beach home seven years ago. Turns out though, given this beachside burb is one of the most desirable places to live in the country, it isn’t an easy real estate dream to achieve.
After viewing what seemed like hundreds of properties, in February 2020 we had to temporarily hit ‘pause’ on our surf and sun lifestyle when my partner’s work took us to Melbourne for a year. What neither of us expected was that this move timed almost perfectly with the arrival of a global pandemic — a pandemic that would see us trapped in one of the world’s longest lockdowns.
Bondi was on our minds all through Melbourne's lockdown.
However, amidst the misery, we kept our spirits alive by continuing the search for our dream Bondi pad online — and then, just when we had almost given up hope, a house popped up that piqued our interest. A rundown Federation share house that was — with some serious wriggle room — just about within our budget. But there was a slight catch.
Due to state border closures we were trapped in Victoria and couldn’t see the property in person. And so, we took the mother of all punts, did the unthinkable, and spent our life savings on the place — without even seeing it!
The house — a diamond in the rough?
When the NSW border finally opened, we packed up our rental in a hire truck, got out of Melbourne, and finally saw our new home for real. Upon arrival, the front door handle fell off in my hand, which was a portent of things to come.
Inside, we discovered years and years of grime and decades of neglect. Piles of dead cockroaches, bad electrics, leaks in the skylight and ceiling, a deathtrap of a staircase, and, perhaps most disturbing of all, a resident family of rats. But on the flip side, it was spacious, boasted super-high ceilings and period features and is was filled with natural light.
The original house in its partially renovated state. Picture: Paul Ewart
Excitement overtook the fear and we planned to celebrate Christmas in our new home within 12 months. Famous last words. In fact, our “it’ll take a year” renovation prediction would blow out into a four-year-long journey — which has only just ended.
Planning makes perfect — creating the home of our dreams
Given the dire state of the house, we knew that we were essentially starting from scratch, so we had an opportunity to create a bespoke home that ticked most of our boxes. The house felt both warm and full of character and we want to build on this with our ‘vintage meets modern’ aesthetic. Significant structural work was needed, as well as cosmetic changes throughout.
Brass, marble and shades of green are used throughout the home. Picture: Courtesy of Paul Ewart
Often period properties can be very dark and gloomy, but the existing large, central atrium filled the place with natural light. We planned to reposition the staircase into this space to both maximise the useable floor space, and to create a design feature. On the street-level floor we planned to repurpose a bedroom into an additional living area due to its floor-to-ceiling windows and views over the garden and surrounding mature palm trees.
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Some other key additions in our plans included a luxurious third floor attic conversion into a master suite, with walk-in wardrobe and plush bathroom with giant tub and overhead skylight. On the lower-ground floor to improve flow and for both practicality and aesthetic reasons we planned on laying polished concrete throughout the space and adding an enclosed laundry and WC. Light in the kitchen area would be maximised with the addition of full height glass doors, which would open onto the back garden — a garden that would become a spa retreat with pool, sauna and shower.
But before we finalised the architectural and the interior designs we thought it was important to live in the house for a bit to test out our ideas and to make sure that, what worked on paper, also translated into real life. Luckily, thanks to council, we didn’t have a choice.
The huge bath on the third-floor needed a steel beam for support. Picture: Courtesy of Paul Ewart
Red tape — the trails and tribulations of dealing with the local council
Early on in the design process we realised that the local council had an extensive array of regulations and restrictions that meant — despite us not expanding on the footprint of the property or doing anything particularly daring — we would need a full development application, or ‘DA’, in which every element required multiple formal reviews. The fact that our house looked like a single storey from the front and a double storey from the rear, meant serious back and forth about the planned attic conversion into a third level.
Cue a series of expensive shadow diagrams, stormwater assessments, 3D renders, an A to Z of certifications, multiple site visits from council, and much, much more. Plus, each time we submitted a DA, or partial DA, or anything, in fact, we had to pay fees to council.
Dealing with council can be confusing, expensive, and often very frustrating, especially when navigating regulations that may be applicable to your ‘zone’, but not to a house only a few metres away. Or when faced with judgements on items that have absolutely no impact. For example, council forced us to retain a dormer window that had been illegally installed 20 years previously. This demand meant that our walk-in-wardrobe ended up having to be halved in size. As our architect said “it makes no sense to anyone else but council!”
The build — budget blow-outs and Builder bust-ups
We bought our house in the midst of the 2020 Sydney market pandemic-related price dip. But the fanfare over bagging a ‘bargain’ turned to despair when, due to the significant delays with our DA application, our renovation coincided with the construction industry price hike.
Construction costs rose by around 20-30% thanks to both increased demand and supply-side factors. Add to this architectural fees, consultant fees, council fees, certification costs and additional building costs — particularly for an older building, like ours — and the $450,000 we had allowed ended up blowing up to almost four times that amount. The budget blow-out meant culling some of the pricier elements of the build, including the outdoor pool.
The copper front door was purchased second-hand and retrofitted. Picture: Courtesy of Paul Ewart
Another sore point during the renovation was the relationship between us and our builder unravelling after a lengthy series of delays, disappointments and disasters. While we had been more than tolerant, we found our requests being ignored and mistakes of a Fawlty Towers variety — such as doors being installed the wrong way around, two different colours of render being applied to the external walls or being left without a front door handle for three months.
It became clear there was no duty of care, or adequate project management but, after being dragged through the unrelenting experience for four years, our energy reserves had been depleted and we were left broken and beaten.
The big reveal — a total transformation
Finally, almost two years after we moved out to let the builder’s begin, we were able to return to the house of our dreams (and sometimes nightmares).
What was a rat-infested hovel almost on the verge of being uninhabitable had been transformed into a three-level, architectural masterpiece, packed with personality and filled with curated artwork and treasures.
Paul and his partner spent four years renovating their Bondi pad. Picture: Courtesy of Paul Ewart
On the street level, a custom, oversized copper front door with keypad entry opens into an art gallery corridor with built-in gallery hanging system and tilted down lights. Next, a safari themed study-cum-library which features mural wallpaper, bespoke colour matched cabinetry and a restored period fireplace. The Moroccan-inspired guest bathroom (a personal favourite) has been created using imported encaustic Moroccan tiles as inspiration.
In the centre of the property we repositioned the staircase into the existing atrium. Now (with the addition of the third floor loft conversion) a three-level mono-stringer black steel staircase is set under a huge, bespoke skylight, which fills the entire space with light.
On the ground floor, an Indian-inspired living area references the adjacent mature palm trees outside with a subtropical colour palette — including a gorgeous corner RJ Living sofa in forest green corduroy.
The corduroy couch adds texture to the living room. Picture: Courtesy of Paul Ewart.
In the second living space on the lower-ground floor a full wall of bespoke cabinetry colour matched to the surrounding paint. In the kitchen, full height doors open onto the lush, plant-filed back garden and we’ve doubled the island size and added extra wide mitred waterfall edging using New York marble.
Blue cabinetry and brushed brass handles and tap ware make the entire effect shine. We also used gold as a trim on the staircase tread edging to pick up the brushed brass tap ware that has been used in the entire property.
Splurge versus steal — creating a luxury resort vibe at home
While our budget dilemma meant that we had to do some serious compromising we still wanted to make sure that our original plan to channel a ‘luxury overseas resort’ was honoured. This meant coming up with some penny-pinching solutions. For example, I bagged the aforementioned copper front door on Facebook Marketplace and then had it professionally resized for under $1000 — to commission a door would cost at least fivefold.
Another wallet-friendly luxe addition was the wine cellar in the former storage area under the house. The windowless room is naturally climate controlled making it perfect to store wine. After pouring a concrete floor, we installed black, galvanised wine racks (sourced for next to nix from a slick CBD restaurant that was shutting its doors) and topped off with wallet-friendly LED strips at the base of the racks, which illuminates the old 1900s sandstone and bottles to perfection.
The wine cellar was decked out with racks from a closed restaurant. Picture: Courtesy of Paul Ewart
On the third storey we created a bougie retreat for grown ups. A lavish main bedroom with walk-in wardrobe, study nook, and luxury bathroom suite. Bespoke green cabinetry for the wardrobe (with brushed brass handles), black accent walls and a study niche with a desk made from another piece of New York marble, black plantation shutters and the same concrete effect French wash on the bedhead wall, pendant lights either side, and quite possibly one of the biggest king size beds ever in forest green velvet.
In the adjoining bathroom we went with the biggest tub possible (so big we needed an extra steel beam to support it) with a skylight poisoned directly above for nighttime star-gazing. It also has a double rain shower, double sinks in beautiful fluted concrete and floor to ceiling doors which are tinted high enough for privacy but low enough to allow all the tops of the surrounding palm trees to be seen.
While we lost the pool due to the inflated budget we still wanted to retain at ‘at-home spa’ of sorts, so we splurged on a sauna — which we painted in monument grey to match the surrounding fencing — and added a copper shower.
An pool was compromised for an outdoor shower. Picture: Courtesy of Paul Ewart
A renovation recap — was it worth it?
Giving the desirability of the country’s most famous beachside suburb, buying into Bondi Beach seems to be a no-brainer.
"Bondi Beach is a perennially popular lifestyle destination, with proximity to the beach, ocean and CBD playing a role in continued price growth, given the value placed on these amenities by buyers,” PropTrack senior economist Eleanor Creagh said.
“The median sale price for houses in Bondi has increased 12% year-on-year, which is continuing the strong growth we have seen over the past five years — a rise of 54% and sale price for houses in Bondi have more than doubled in the past 10 years, reaching $4.09 million.
“While the exceptional growth of the past decade is likely to be hard to replicate in the coming decade, it's likely values will continue to lift in Bondi with an imbalance between supply and demand fuelling continued growth, despite affordability having deteriorated significantly.”
Luxe detail was added in every room Picture: Courtesy of Paul Ewart
We purchased the property at the height of uncertainty brought on by the pandemic, which meant prices dropped significantly and our purchase price of $1,887 million was a relative 'bargain'. But, with the renovation costs totalling $1.6 million, we anticipated we would end up overcapitalising.
To find out where we stood, we asked experienced local agent — director of Ray White Unlimited Bondi Beach Ron Bauer — to inspect the property and give us his thoughts.
“It is entirely indistinguishable from its former self,” Mr Bauer said. “Being comprehensively renovated to a degree rarely — arguably never — seen in the local market. It would be quite the task to produce a real estate marketing brochure that would do it justice, this is a property that needs to be seen to be believed. In fact, it needs to be experienced!
Green and brass accents feature in the bathrooms and bedrooms. Picture: Courtesy of Paul Ewart
“An appraisal is difficult to provide, such is the impossible task of comparing this property with others. ‘Unique’ is often overused in this industry but it absolutely applies here. Still, based on recent sales, the state of the market and the specific features of the property, it is our opinion that it would achieve in the vicinity of $4.5-5 million if offered on the current market. A far cry from the well sub-$2 million purchase price not so long ago!”
Crunching the numbers it seems that, on paper at least, we’ve made a profit of between and $1 and 1.5 million. And though this does ease some of the lingering PTSD from the renovation, it doesn’t provide any temptation to sell. Indeed, after four years of (literal) blood, sweat and tears, we plan to sit back and enjoy the fruits of our labours in our little slice of heaven by the sea.
English (US) · 