The 22-room, $40m mansion where Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman partied in Australia when they were a couple has just hit the market.
When Hollywood heavyweights Baz Luhrmann and Catherine Martin sold Iona almost a decade ago, the grand Italianate manor played a very different role to the one it does today.
The Luhrmann-Martins had run their production company Bazmark from behind the stately gates of 2 Darley St.
After buying Iona in 2006 for $10m from Jan Gowrie-Smith, the former wife of entrepreneur Ian Gowrie-Smith, the couple conceived cinematic hits such as The Great Gatsby and Australia from the ground floor office.
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Nicole Kidman with Tom Cruise arriving at Iona for a Baz Luhrmann party.
Prior to purchasing the 22-room, seven-bedroom, seven-bathroom trophy home, the pair had rented the residence for nine years.
And as you can imagine, the showbiz parties held at the lavish estate had a veritable VIP guest list of international stars.
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2 Darley St, Darlinghurst, Iona is up for sale with a $40m price guide.
The house was famous for the parties held there by Baz Luhrmann and Catherine Martin. Photo: Getty
Back in the early 2000s, Tom Cruise, Nicole Kidman and Ewan McGregor rubbed shoulders with cast and crew at a post-production party for the film Moulin Rouge.
Later during their ownership, Luhrmann’s Great Gatsby stars such as Toby Maguire and Joel Edgerton also partied in the mansion.
In 2016, Iona hosted the glamorous Sydney Children’s Hospital Silver Party attended by local celebrities such as Jesinta Franklin, Terry Biviano and Anthony Minichello, and Jodi Gordon.
Current owners Tim Eustace, who is Mercury Private’s principal adviser, and his partner Salvador Panui have put their own elegant stamp on the iconic Darlinghurst property since buying it from the movie moguls for $16m in 2015.
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The grand entry of Iona.
It’s far more family friendly now than it was.
There’s a commercial-grade kitchen and butler’s pantry.
Now the pair are ready to downsize from the 22-room residence.
“It’s a far more usable, family-friendly home than it was,” says listing agent Ben Collier of The Agency.
Previously, it was half set up as an office as well as a home. But now it feels like a grand family estate,” said
“The current owners have done a lot of things you can’t necessarily see, but they have modernised it and also completely redone the kitchen.”
“The other thing that’s significantly different from when the current owners bought it to now is that the gardens are far more established. It’s much more private,” Collier said.
At 2716sq m, the vast landscaped grounds represent the most significant land parcel so close to the CBD.
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The huge home is on a 2716sqm block.
Ah, the serenity.
“This is a unique house for Sydney, let alone for a high-density urban environment such as Darlinghurst; it really is an anomaly. For a lot of these grand homes over time, the landholdings were chopped up and subdivided as Sydney grew. But for a house like this to still retain in excess of 2700sq m it’s pretty unique,” Mr Collier said.
Listed through an expressions of interest campaign, Collier is marketing Iona with a $40m price guide.
“That’s where we feel it sits in the market today. To rebuild something like this, its size, and in that location, it’s just unparalleled,” Collier added.
Once the site of the much smaller Iona Cottage, the larger original estate known as Darlinghurst Heights was subdivided in 1845. Eventually, wealthy pastoralist Edward Chisholm built the ‘new-look’ Iona in 1888. The property was also once a private hospital and had been slated for demolition in the 1970s, but was later saved and placed on the National Trust’s heritage list by 1976.
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Enjoy laps in the 19.6m long mosaic-tiled pool.
There are seven bedrooms and seven bathrooms.
The vast internal footprint of today includes the original footprint with additions but covers a palatial 1035sq m over two expansive levels. Iona is filled with meticulously restored period touches such as elaborate stained glass windows and ornate 4.3m high ceilings alongside sympathetic contemporary updates including much of the bespoke wallpaper designed by former owner and Oscar-winning designer Catherine Martin.
On the ground floor, the layout plays host to a collection of formal spaces such as a large drawing room, a sitting room and a billiard room, all with fireplaces and access to the traditional wraparound veranda, which in turn spills onto the sprawling north-facing grounds.
The same level also has a home office, gym, casual family areas, and an open plan dining zone feeding off the commercial-grade kitchen and full butler’s pantry.
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All of the rooms on the ground floor have access to the traditional wraparound verandah.
The billyard room is also on the ground floor.
Upstairs, a library wraps around a central void with all seven bedrooms on the same level. The main suite has a bay window, balcony access and a huge dressing room with fireplace. Other bedrooms have ensuites and built-in wardrobes, while one nursery-style room features a private kitchenette. An additional self-contained apartment with separate balcony access is an ideal caretaker or au pair’s accommodation. A basem*nt level houses a wine cellar with cool room and multiple storage rooms.
Iona has two street entries; one driveway access via Darley St and a second pedestrian entry off Tewkesbury Ave complete with gates that once hung at Grosvenor House in London, the former palace of the Duke of Westminster.
The romantic manicured grounds have elaborate water features at both entrances, a private Grotto with Japanese garden designed by Ken Lamb, established bamboo and frangipani trees plus a 19.6m long mosaic-tiled pool.
Iona is in a small cul de sac close to the Paul Ramsay Foundation, St Vincent’s Hospital medical precinct, SCEGGS Darlinghurst and the National Art School.
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