Property Of The Week: 5 Mitchell Street, North Bondi, NSW

The dusty adage of ‘location, location, location’ certainly rings true for this North Bondi residence.

Located within walking distance of the beach and Seven Ways shopping precinct as well as local eateries, this 5-bedroom, 3-bathroom, 2-car parking home is the ideal family offering.

Set on a wide-fronted block offering 251sqm, the free-flowing spaces are split across two floors.

Inside presents a newly refreshed home with polished timber floors and new carpet. The living room and kitchen offers classically high ceilings – the latter fitted with an island connecting to the spacious dining area.

It’s also here that the oversized windows overlook the garden and the lead out to the alfresco dining terrace.

All five double bedrooms offer built-ins while the master bedroom is set with an ensuite, walk-in-robe and private balcony access.

Elsewhere the home offers three bathrooms and an internal laundry.

Further, the home offers a workshop or storage area – with the scope to convert – along with an attic.

Ducted air condition is available in five zones, with ceiling fans throughout the home supplementing the air flow.

The listing is with PPD Real Estate’s Mary Anne Cronin (+61 411 773 646) and Jane Lomax (+61 410 465 277) and is headed to auction February 27. Price guide; $2.9m.

Ppdre.com.au

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.

Designed for indoor-outdoor living, the house has matching mahogany paneling and limestone both inside and out. Arthur Sharif/Sotheby’s International Realty

The dining room is between an outdoor garden and the staircase. Arthur Sharif/Sotheby’s International Realty

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 kitchen and family room open to the garden and pool. Arthur Sharif/Sotheby’s International Realty

Cast alcoves and mahogany shelves house the couple’s books and ceramics. Arthur Sharif/Sotheby’s International Realty

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.”

Ehrlich said it took a few tries to get the concrete wall right. Arthur Sharif/Sotheby’s International Realty

‘It’s a really hard material to tame,’ Ehrlich said of concrete. Workers learned as they went, and Waldfogel and Helyn grew to appreciate the imperfect material. Arthur Sharif/Sotheby’s International Realty

A central staircase is housed in a glass tower. Arthur Sharif/Sotheby’s International Realty

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.

Arthur Sharif/Sotheby’s International Realty

Two wings of the house are connected by horizontal planes. Arthur Sharif/Sotheby’s International Realty

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.

Property Of The Week: 5 Mitchell Street, North Bondi, NSW

The ideal family home in a sought-after location.

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.