Mark Webber buys tennis star’s Noosa retreat for $5 million
Tennis ace Thomas Muster has sold his Noosa residential retreat for about $5 million to Formula One driver Mark Webber.
Muster spent $3.5 million in early 2006 on the highest of the six luxury houses on the steep slopes of Noosa Hill, set in the Viridian Noosa complex.
It was passed in at auction in January when it was given a $5,175,000 price tag by Peter Butt of Richardson & Wrench, Noosa.
The property is set on a 1362-square-metre block, with a huge private pool and views over Tea Tree Bay, extending to Double Island Point.
“This magnificent property was designed to entertain on a grand scale, with extensive outdoor seating areas and landscaped water features,” its marketing brochure says.
The four bedroom, three bathroom house virtually wraps around hilltop trees.
The shielding vegetation offered the privacy presumably sought by Muster, who returns occasionally to the Queensland coastal town because his former wife, Jo Beth Taylor, former Australia's Funniest Home Videos host, periodically resided on the Sunshine Coast with their young son Christian while working for the local radio station.
The Perth-based Taylor had adopted Muster's Noosa base after the couple met at the Australian Grand Prix in 2000.
The 35-hectare hinterland property, Cintamani, was Muster's first house, which was bought in 1994 for $1 million and sold in 2002 for $7.6 million to Collection House founder Stephen Walker.
Viridian Noosa was a joint venture between Leighton Properties and Ariadne Australia.
Designed by Noosa resident John Mainwaring, it was only built after the long-time owner of the 19.8-hectare banana plantation headed to the High Court after a decade-long battle with Noosa Shire Council, which constrained the land's development.
Muster was in Noosa during the Queensland floods in January and gave his time in the subsequent Brisbane clean-up.
Properties you may like in Queensland:
