Sold: Olivia Newton-John hands over keys to her Ballina getaway of 40 years

Olivia Newton-John has sold her long-held holiday home on the NSW North Coast five months after she listed it for more than $5 million.

The sale ends almost 40 years of ownership for the legendary entertainer since she bought five blocks of land near Ballina in 1981 for $622,000 as a country escape from the pressures of stardom.

At the time Newton-John’s music career was soaring thanks in part to her breakout role as Sandy in the 1978 box office hit Grease and the release of her chart-topping album Physical in 1981.

As her career has grown, so too has the size of her private retreat, with an adjoining block added to the holding in 1983 and another in 2015 to create a 55-hectare property in Dalwood. The estate includes pasture, a creek, two dams and a rainforest of more than 10,000 trees planted to abut the Victoria Park Nature Reserve.

One of Newton-John’s oldest friends Jillian McGrath was with her all those decades ago when the US-based star looked at buying the property as her home in Australia. McGrath was the obvious choice to sell the property given she is now selling real estate at McGrath Estate Agents.

When it was listed in February McGrath said Newton-John’s purchase had been about “having a peaceful base that was completely private [and] that was true to who she is: the animal lover and the environmentalist”.

McGrath had not responded to calls from Domain on Wednesday, when a sold notification was posted on the property’s marketing sites, but she had guide of more than $5 million throughout the campaign. Settlement will reveal the result.

The original cottage was rebuilt in 2002 into a French-inspired country house with stone arches and vintage timber doors, a vast country kitchen and a self-contained guest retreat, on a hillside setting with two dams, a pond and tennis court.

“The expansive view from the farm is breathtaking and captured my heart all those years ago,” Newton-John told Domain when it was listed. “The 136-plus acres gives total privacy with peaceful, calming energy.”

The sale won’t cut Newton-John’s ties to the North Coast given she returns at least once a year to stay at the Gaia Retreat & Spa she co-founded in 2005.

The property has been held in the name of Newton-John’s investment vehicle Agbil Pty Ltd, currently directed and owned in the name of her husband John Easterling and her Melbourne-based accountant Michael Roseby.