The Block judge Marty Fox selling stunning Elsternwick flip and Red Hill holiday cottage
Two beautifully presented properties owned by TV personality and real estate mogul Marty Fox and his wife have hit the market.
The Block judge Marty and wife Charlotte, co-founders of rapidly expanding Whitefox Real Estate, are letting go of an Edwardian flip in Elsternwick and a renovated holiday cottage in Red Hill.
Selling both at the same time was not by design, says Marty Fox, 37, the Whitefox chief executive and an expert flipper. “It’s just how it’s sort of all panned out.” .
The father-of-three describes the 720-square-metre north-facing Elsternwick delight at 25 Allison Road, which was saved from bulldozers last year, as having a “vibe”.
Sporting a Saint Tropez-inspired design, the four-bedroom home features a deep garden with Nathan Burkett landscaping, French oak floors and imported chandeliers. There’s underfloor heating in the main bedroom’s en suite, the main bathroom, the powder room and the laundry.
“It was marketed as a bit of a knockdown, but we’ve got a bit of an uncanny ability of restoring, and, you know, reinvigorating these beautiful old period homes,” Fox says. “My wife saw this one, and a year ago, when we bought it, she just said, ‘Oh, this is it. We’re going to bring this back to life.’ And we did.”
Inspired by a trip to the south of France earlier this year, the couple – parents to Freddy, 7, Olive, 5, and Bonnie, 2 – sent photos to their interior designer with a specific brief to transform the property.
“We said, ‘The brief is Saint Tropez in Elsternwick,’ ” Fox says. “We’ve given a house that was possibly going to be bulldozed just an incredible energy.”
Among Fox’s favourite spots at the property, which is located near a lovely park, is hanging out in a booth with banquette seating that looks onto the deep garden, one of many quirky features he enjoys.
“It’s arguably on the best street in Elsternwick, which has Harleston Park, which is a really beautiful park,” Fox says. “My wife used to play there as a child.”
Fox’s own upbringing was not as stable, living with his folks in more than 50 different homes across Victoria, and attending seven different schools. Much of his success derives from humble beginnings, driven by a passion to never be evicted from a property as an adult, after experiencing this over and again as a child, he says.
“I had to share a bedroom with my mum and my brother, and, you know, for many years, lived in a one bedroom apartment,” he says, candidly. “I did it fairly rough in terms of my upbringing. It certainly wasn’t silver spoon, and I think that’s where I fell in love with property.
“As soon as I could work and make money, I just wanted to have a house that I could call home … I did it at the age of 21 and I’ve maintained that until today.”
The Elsternwick property marks the savvy couple’s 15th renovation. “Charlotte and I were 21 years of age,” he says, referring back to his first renovation 16 years ago.
“We always renovate homes and sell them. And, hand on heart, we would live in any home that we renovate, even if it is to flip. We’ve always had that vision.”
Bringing much success, their rule of thumb has always been to possess a design mindset as the end user.
“I was obviously in real estate, so I always knew what the buyer wanted,” Fox says, “so like I say on The Block, ‘You need to design homes thinking as an end user.’
“We know that a family will buy Allison Road. We know that they’ll probably want to put in a pool, so we did landscaping very simply at the back – and architecturally at the front – so that they can visualise dropping a pool in. We’ve allowed it to remain exciting for the next person to buy it.”
The Foxes are also selling their “beautiful little Peninsula getaway” – the cottage at 361 Arthurs Seat Road, Red Hill, snapped up in 2021 – as it has become surplus to the young family.
With weekend kids’ sports they’ve found less opportunity to escape, plus more business travel, and gratefully owning a similarly sized backyard at their Toorak home.
The renovated 1950s home sits on a 1548-square-metre block in the heart of the Mornington Peninsula’s wine country. Complete with a picket fence, its period charm meets modern design with several fireplaces and luxuries like en-suite underfloor heating, a self-contained studio and an electric car charger.
There is a kids’ paradise out the back, featuring a year-round heated pool and in-ground trampoline surrounded by a manicured garden dotted with mature water gums and pear trees.
Fox loves waking up in Red Hill, making a coffee, sitting on the elevated deck, and enjoying the birds and the forest views before anyone else wakes up. “I love that, because that’s where the sun comes up in the morning,” he says.
When it comes to renovating, the couple’s skill sets complement one another.
Fox says he is all over the acquisition, understanding end value, planning the designs, moving the rooms internally, and often changing a room’s purpose.
“I also look after everything outside the property, the landscaping, street appeal, and what inclusions are within the yard,” he says. “Charlotte nails the materiality – the selections of stone and carpets and lighting, appliance selection and more.”
When it’s time for marketing, photography and video, the ball bounces back to Fox, who, fortunately placed with 90 staff to choose from, “selects the best agent within Whitefox to represent the actual sale”.
Appearing as a judge on the highest-rated TV show in the country, The Block, he backs himself from the experience gained from calling thousands of auctions, owning 12 renovated real estate offices, 15-plus homes and 12-plus commercial fitouts.
“I rock up on the day and they just say, go for it,” he says of being on the series set on Phillip Island. “And I just find that that’s probably why the show’s such a success, is that it is so organic, and they truly trust me as a judge to deliver what I think, and they trust what I think.”
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