Property Of The Week: 56 Power Street, Hawthorn, VIC
An enviable lifestyle awaits with this modernised Victorian entertainer.
By Richard Clune
Wed, Mar 24, 2021 12:15pm
2 min
2 min
A grand double-storey Victorian entertainer tucked neatly into one of Melbourne’s prized inner suburbs, ‘Girraween’ proves an enviable study in classic elegance and updated functionality for luxurious contemporary living.
Set well back from the street, enter the approx. 1190 sqm plot via a private and walled front garden and embrace an immediate sense of calm. Off the inviting, arched hallway sits the exquisite formal dining, sumptuous library, secondary living area and kitchen.
The latter delivers Smeg and ASKO appliances as well as HeatnGlo fireplace and contemporary cabinetry across a neutral white palette and continuation of Japanned floorboards.
Of the four well-appointed upstairs bedrooms, the master suite boasts WIR/dresser and luxurious modern ensuite with city views. A further bathroom and powder room can be found upstairs, with additional powder room on the ground floor.
Dating to c1883, classical ceilings abound here, so too marble gas fireplaces across the library, formal living and dining rooms as well as further modern musts such as hydronic heating, air-conditioning, alarm, video intercom and double-glazed windows.
The exemplary elegance of ‘Girraween’ extends across the rear and what is a delightful entertainer’s garden as lifted from the British countryside. The sun-soaked rear holds a huge deck, large grassed area and what is an established kitchen garden alongside a potager shed and remote-control garage with abundant storage.
Situated just 5km from the CBD, the property rests on the edge of the Grace Park Estate and within easy access to the elevated shopping and dining of Glenferrie Road and Kew Junction.
Nearby to trams and Hawthorn train station, so too parklands, the Yarra River and some of Melbourne’s finest schools, including Xavier, MLC, Trinity and more.
‘Girraween’ is a rare opportunity to own a property that affords not only an enviable lifestyle, but an updated slice of history that holds a tremendous sense of self.
EOI closing April 10, the property is with Kay & Burton’s Sam Wilkinson (0400 169 148) and Xavier Karagiannis (0427 367 330); kayburton.com.au/
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For years, tech entrepreneur Asher Waldfogel and his wife, Helyn MacLean, dreamed of building a modern house in Palo Alto, Calif.
The couple, however, worried about clashing with the Mediterranean-style architecture typically associated with their neighborhood of Old Palo Alto.
So they tapped architect Steven Ehrlich to create a design that paid homage to its surroundings with stucco, mahogany and titanium zinc cladding. They spent $20 million over several years building the house, completed in 2005.
Now looking to be closer to their adult daughter on the East Coast, they are putting the five-bedroom home on the market for $44 million—the most expensive listing in Palo Alto.
Waldfogel is an angel investor who co-founded Redback Networks, a telecommunications-equipment company. MacLean previously had a career in fundraising.
The couple purchased the roughly 0.4-acre site for $7.1 million in 2000 and demolished a circa-1930s Spanish Colonial home. The house they built pinwheels around a central staircase. It has 7,900 square feet of livable space, with four distinct courtyards and a pool.
A key feature of the home is a cast-in-place concrete wall, or spine, that is two stories high and about 80 feet long. “There’s a little bit of controlled chaos in what comes out of the form,” unlike a perfectly uniform surface, Waldfogel said. “If you want that, you do it in plastic.”
Waldfogel said he and his wife are thinking about the next phase of life now that their daughter is grown, although they have not decided where they will move. They also have a home in Sun Valley, Idaho.
“Right now we’re just trying to emotionally let go and decide what to do next,” he said.
Palo Alto, an epicenter of venture capital and tech startups in Silicon Valley, is home to some of the country’s biggest tech titans. Sales volume and prices are rising, with a median sale price of $3.5 million for the three months ending in August, up 5.8% year-over-year, according to real-estate brokerage Redfin.
Arthur Sharif of Sotheby’s International Realty—San Francisco Brokerage has the listing.
