Jennifer Hawkins, Jake Wall sell Newport trophy home Casa Paloma

Six months after Jennifer Hawkins and her husband Jake Wall listed their Newport trophy home Casa Paloma for more than $20 million, it has sold.

The sale price remains undisclosed by Ken Jacobs, of Christie’s International, who was uncontactable at the time of publication, but the listing was flagged as sold on its Domain listing on Monday, and the vendors had held firm on their $20 million-plus expectations.

The former Myer ambassador and Miss Universe 2004 and the model-turned-builder made the surprise decision to list the two-year-old residence last November, just weeks after the birth of their daughter Frankie Violet amid plans to move closer to family on the Central Coast.

The sale comes amid heated activity in the prestige market in recent weeks despite broader market woes being felt from the economic impact of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The architect Koichi Takada-designed residence was expected to be a forever home for the couple given it was a no-expense-spared build that involved a large-scale excavation of the site and for which its construction won a Master Builders Award for Wall’s J Group Projects.

The prime expanse of 3360 square metres of beachfront was an amalgamation of adjoining blocks bought in 2014 for $4 million from a company held by investment banker Tony Berg, and set on the site of what was formerly the Wentworth Estate of the late Liberal politician Bill Wentworth.

“It’s going to be really sad to say goodbye to this beautiful home and location,” Hawkins told Title Deeds exclusively at the time it was listed. “It has been absolutely amazing to live in Newport and this house was perfect for entertaining family and friends being by the water.

“We really made some amazing memories here but I’m looking forward to designing a house with Jake with a similar aesthetic closer to family.

“I’ve always dreamed of living on an acreage by the ocean and now that we’ve just had our daughter Frankie we’d like to live closer to family while she’s young but still close to our work in the city, so we have our eye on Avoca, Macmasters [Beach] and Wamberal.”

The five-bedroom residence features a central sandstone feature wall and interiors by Sarah-Jayne Marriott and Hellen Pappas, with vast walls of glass that open to cantilevered terraces overlooking the swimming pool, a private boathouse and the western foreshores of Pittwater.

Hawkins and Wall are well-documented property flippers in Sydney’s prestige market. The couple’s former home on the clifftop of North Curl Curl was a major rebuild to a design by Takada after they bought it in 2010 for $1.375 million that sold in 2014 for $4.1 million to Fortescue Metals chief Elizabeth Gaines, and their nearby investment got the similar designer treatment after they bought it in 2013 for $1.66 million and sold in 2016 for $5.235 million to Test cricketers Mitchell Starc and Alyssa Healey.

The highest sale result on the northern beaches, at $24 million in February when Caroline Jumpterz, the daughter of the late Sam Chisholm, sold her weekender to investment banker Mike Messara, set a Palm Beach record.