Five Rural Estates To Own
Escape the rat race with one of these sprawling country retreats.
By Terry Christodoulou
Mon, Mar 15, 2021 5:55am
3 min
3 min
The well-documented escape to the country continues unabated – metro dwellers looking for something more given ascendant city prices and COVID’s forced rethink on space and the traditional working week.
Here, we cut through the dross to deliver five standout escapes from across the country.
Olio Milo Estate, Pokolbin, NSW
Elsewhere, the southern European styled six-bedroom main residence is accompanied by magnificent grounds, while a two-bedroom guest house, managers cottage and olive processing plant round out what is an exceptional and unique offering.
POA; Cullenroyle.com.au
5 Blake Court, Mount Samson, QLD
Situated in a breathtaking location — with views of the hills and beyond — this impeccable residence is a combination of Hamptons and contemporary Queenslander, with soaring ceilings and beautiful timber adornments.
Beyond the two-hectares of land and jaw-dropping pool, the five-bedroom, four-bathroom, four-car garage pile offers impeccable ‘granny flat’, cinema room, Smeg, Miele and Liebherr appliances and a raft of smart home gadgetry.
534 Donaldson Road, Ancona, VIC
‘Hayfield Rise’ is an incredible take on high-country architectural modernity, situated in Victoria’s impressive Ancona Valley.
Sat on 20 hectares, the home’s s four pavilions, five bedrooms and four bathrooms offer space, light and designer flourishes at all turns.
The home – which also wraps around a central pool – is characterised by the use of recycled timbers, concrete, stone and galvanised iron, touching on the past and also developing a unique, modern narrative.
The gardens, by acclaimed landscape designer Paul Bangay, surround the house and include fruit tree orchard, rose garden, perennial garden beds and more.
POA; Mcgrath.com.au
3383 Chittering Road, Chittering, WA
This is a majestic and modern 1000sqm home perched on a rise that allows stunning views across the Brockman River Valley.
The single-level house – which rests on 61-hectares – boasts five-bedrooms, three-bathrooms and room for 14 cars. Yes, 14. Floor to ceiling windows dominate, so too the use of cedar and Toodyay stone.
Wrapped around a luxury 25-metre pool, it’s outside you’ll also find an LED floodlit tennis/basketball/netball court, with an all-weather surface and fully enclosed cricket pitch as well as large, undercover playground area.
Located in the hills outside Perth — meaning trips to the ‘big smoke’ remain an option whenever needed.
$4,750,000; ljhooker.com.au
71 Sand Road, Jupiter Creek, SA
A heady combination of privacy, luxury and functionality, ‘Bandarrah’ provides the best in country living.
The expansive 574sqm residence offers six living spaces, five-bedrooms and three-bathrooms and is set across 21.85-hectares. There’s also designer pool and impressive entertainer’s pool house.
Set up for horses with 16 paddocks and four holding yards, the shedding complex will prove attractive to any serious car collector or those seeking a solid workshop.
While you won’t want to leave – Adelaide remains an easy 35-minute meander.
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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.
