SYDNEY – Move over Jay Leno, this newly up-for-sale Sydney garage slash man cave is the stuff of a car collector’s dreams. Only a stone’s throw from the CBD and with enough space for fifteen of your favourite four-wheeled vehicles (quite a few more if you’re a biker, we reckon) and a fistful of your favourite friends, this is a kick-ons spot like you’ve never seen before.
Sydney’s not exactly lacking for eye-popping property, car enthusiasts, or the necessary capital to bring the two together, but this newly advertised spot on the border of Darling Point and Edgecliff might just take the biscuit for best boys’ spot this side of Bali.
Originally used as a seaplane workshop back in the 50s, this garage-come-man-cave can house up to fifteen cars across its 216sq/m floor space and has just gone on the market for a cool $3 million.
Owned by Michael Ryan – the personal trainer turned pet foods entrepreneur, director of Healthy Everyday Pets – and his celebrity chef wife Zoe Bingley-Pullin, the space has been given a thorough renovation since its seaplane days, now boasting a glistening showroom, lounge space, mezzanine loft, bathroom, and fully-appointed kitchen.
A committed car collector, Michael was inspired by the property’s heritage when he first saw it in 2018: “it was just a dusty old space but it had a huge history” he said, “It was the Qantas engine warehouse for their seaplanes they’d run out by Catalina.”
Its history since is less glamorous but fascinatingly varied: “It’s also been a motor mechanic shed, a garage for hearses, a furniture hire place and storeroom for Cadry’s Rugs”.
How did such a space ever come to be? Especially in such a desirable part of the city where every available square inch has been cut, dried, and piled high with luxury apartments or millionaire mansions?
Well, thanks to a quirk in the mid-century building’s title, the lower level garage was never connected to the titles of the vast apartment building that sits above it, resulting in a totally independent garage space that covers a good amount of the building’s entire footprint.
Located near Rushcutter’s Bay Park and the Cruising Yacht Club, the garage is “only a couple of sets of traffic lights from home, so if you work in the city it’s on the way there, or it’s on the way back home”, making a mid-week car swap a breeze.
More than the convenience, it was the effort that has gone into transforming the spot from a humble workshop into a perfect hang-out spot that really caught our eye.
Complete with polished concrete floors, spiral staircase, workbench and – most importantly – a large and well-stocked fridge, the property is perfect for “inviting a few mates over and maybe [read: definitely] drinking a beer or two”.
Moreover, the property is zoned B4, so could be remodelled however the new owner sees fit, provided they get council approval. Julian Hasemer, the listed agent, said this:
“You don’t see anything like this come up in the Eastern Suburbs very often… Right now the owner, obviously an avid VW collector, is using it as a car showroom but really it has the potential to be so many things…”
Julian Hasemer
So if you’ve got a few million that’s burning a hole in your likely pretty deep pockets, don’t delay – this isn’t your average carport and we doubt it’ll be available for long…
The expressions of interest campaign for this cool pad closes at 5pm on March 30.