Mintaro at Monegeetta back on market with $2.85 million hopes
Mintaro, the 1882 Monegeetta, Sunbury district mansion, has been relisted for November 16 auction after last November's $3 million sale failed to proceed to settlement.
It's been given a $2.85 million reserve price ahead of the November 16 auction by the listing agent John Keating of Keatings Real Estate.
The elegant but crumbling Italianate mansion had sold to Toolern Vale couple Brian and Cheryl Glassel whose bank had been difficult for the heritage-listed property loan.
They planned their own "Country House Rescue'' with tours and dining experience set to make the "property pay for itself."
More than 500 attended last November's onsite auction, with three bidders who'd placed bids of $2.775 million or higher.
The Glassel purchase loan of the heritage-listed Mintaro depended on them selling their own historic mansion, Pinewood, on 97 hectares at Toolern Vale. While part of the land was sold, the 97 hectare property remains for sale at $3.1 million.
The 9.9-hectare Mintaro estate auction will be an executor's sale, concluding 79 years of family ownership by the Rae family.
It's a smaller replica of Melbourne's Government House, with Mintaro built by a Captain Robert Gardiner to a design by architect James Gall. Mintaro's design was reputedly influenced by the design of Osborne House, Queen Victoria’s summer residence on the Isle of Wight.
The front room of the the Victorian Period Italiante-style mansion has Gardiner's initials painted on the ceiling.
The walls are painted with friezes of whaling, pastoral and gold mining, which is how he made his money.
"A once undeniably grand and gracious country residence is now in need of total restoration with outstanding future use potential," its listing agent John Keating of Keatings Real Estate says.
Country House Rescue is an observational documentary series on the British television channel, Channel 4, where an expert visits a struggling country house to turn its fortunes around with advice on making more usage of the estates.
The ABC envisages a similiar series could be based around the property which is 56 kilometres from the Melbourne GPO on the Melbourne Lancefield Road.
