An Award-Winning Riverside Queensland Home Is For Sale
Tropical styling meets brutalist design in Sanctuary Cove.
By Terry Christodoulou
Sun, Dec 6, 2020 6:16am
2 min
2 min
On the banks of the Coomera River in Queensland’s tightly held Sanctuary Cove, the award-winning ‘Cove House’ by architect Justin Humphrey is sprawled across a 966sqm block.
Located an hour from Brisbane CBD, or 30-minutes from the Gold Coast at 7366 Marine Drive East, Sanctuary Cove in Queensland, the 3-bedroom, 4-bathroom and 3-car garage home takes its cues from both brutalist architecture and tropical modernism. The heady combination sees an intriguing melding of materials and details – such as off-form concrete and curving timber battens – throughout the home that follows an unconventional layout revolving around lush, open-air tropical garden atriums.
Dark tones set against timber is a theme that is reflected throughout the home – including in the kitchen – which sees a charcoal hued benchtop, European appliances and a hidden wine cellar.
From here, the space flows towards the dining and living areas where timber panelling adorns the ceiling and floor-to-ceiling glass windows give views to the aforementioned central tropical gardens and out to the river.
From the main living area and kitchen, the outdoor entertaining terrace is accessed. The luxurious space is fitted with an in-built barbeque and fireplace, kitchenette with bar fridges, sunken lounge and a pool while an attached mooring allows homeowners to lap up their watery surrounds.
Elsewhere, the home’s master suite sees curved architectural features, glass Venetian-style shutters, a walk-in robe and an ‘indoors-outdoors’ ensuite that offers privacy through the residences central gardens (while still feeling like you’re outside). A further two bedrooms and study are found throughout the home as well as a private laundry courtyard.
Beyond the Cove House’s considered finishes, it holds a submerged rainwater tank, a solar photovoltaic system capable of 15kW alongside three Tesla energy storage batteries furthering its green cred.
The listing is with Matt Gates (+61 404 444 439) of Ray White Sanctuary Cove; POA.
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A five-bedroom Palo Alto home designed by Steven Ehrlich is listed for $44 million, making it the city’s most expensive listing. Built around a dramatic concrete spine, the home features four courtyards and a pool.
By E.B. Solomont
Thu, Sep 24, 2026 3 min
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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.
