Dame Joan Sutherland's former Whale Beach waterfront home listed
Rocca Bella, the Whale Beach oceanfront estate long owned by the late Dame Joan Sutherland has returned to the market after its Point Piper-based owners decided not to proceed with their ambitious new weekender plans.
It was 2015 when investment banker Lorraine Tarabay, wife of Rare Infrastructure fund manager Nick Langley, paid $6.9 million for the clifftop estate, five years after the death of the soprano.
On the peninsula’s largest oceanfront estate of 3300 square metres, the three-storey house remains in a glamorous 1950s time warp.
It had traded in 1977 for $167,000, but was seldom used by Sutherland and her widower conductor Richard Bonynge, who called Montreux, Switzerland, home along with a bolt hole in Potts Point.
It was 1990 when the opera world’s La Stupenda took her last standing ovation after an operatic career spanning almost five decades.
LJ Hooker Palm Beach’s David Edwards takes Rocca Bella to a full campaign next week with $7.5 million to $8 million price guidance.
There are approved Campbell Architecture plans available for the next buyer (below).
The works cost for the four-pavilion home were estimated by architect Hugh Campbell to total $3.6 million, and would include gardens designed by Hugh Main at Spirit Level Landscapes.
Also reinstated would be the overgrown tennis court.
Langley and Tarabay own a Point Piper landmark residence designed by Professor Leslie Wilkinson after moving from their $11.45 million Hunters Hill home, Windermere.
This article was first published in the Sunday Telegraph.
