'Spa King' Eddie Phillips sells $9m Byron Bay digs after 16 years for sale

The Byron Bay trophy home Villa Gabrielle has sold 16 years after it was first listed, and for more than double its initial $4.5 million price hopes.

The sale of what is arguably the slowest mover in the local prestige market leaves nothing for sale for buyers in the more than $5 million range at a time when agents say the prestige market is peaking thanks to demand from Sydney and Melbourne’s well-heeled.

It’s in stark difference to just two years ago when there were more than a handful of high-end homes for sale in the prestige Wategos Beach neighbourhood, says Liam Annesley, of LJ Hooker Byron Bay.

“Sydneysiders are looking here as their preferred holiday destination, especially since their annual overseas holiday plans can’t happen,” he said.

Despite the absence of a large part of the usual market from Victoria and Queensland being unable to visit the area physically at the moment, Mr Annesley says the level of online inquiry, especially from Victoria, is through the roof.

“Judging by how sales soared after restrictions were lifted earlier this year, this will leave us short on stock for buyers when the latest round of restrictions are lifted,” Mr Annesley said.

Villa Gabrielle is owned by businessman and developer Eddie Phillips, known as the “Spa King” since his days as co-founder of the Phillip Wain spa retreats company in Asia.

It was a beach shack in 2002 when he bought it for $2.36 million and commissioned architect Alan Mitchell to design the three-storey house to make the most of the ocean views to Mount Warning.

Its price hopes of 2004 were raised in 2007 to $5.5 million, and it held at that level through a three-year campaign from 2010 to 2013.

As Sydney’s trophy home market boomed in 2018, price expectations in Byron Bay followed and the asking price for Villa Gabrielle jumped to $8.7 million to $9.5 million.

Jeremy Bennett, of Byron Bay Property Sales, was just the latest in a handful of agents to list Villa Gabrielle when he took over the sale last year, but declined to comment late this week on the sale price, leaving it to local sources to disclose the $9.2 million result.

Byron Bay’s record high was smashed a year ago with the boss of fast-growing gym franchise F45 Adam Gilchrist bought a Wategos Beach house for $18.85 million, topping the $15.68 million high set by the same house in 2006 when it was bought by art collector and Dakota Capital chairman Danny Goldberg.

In January the two-year sales campaign on Whalewatchers, also on Wategos Beach, ended well short of its $18.5 million guide when it was bought by art dealer Steve Nasteski for $12 million.

“Everything up the highway is sold now,” is how agent Anthony Walls, of Max Walls International, puts it. All except a 97-hectare parcel of bushland he has listed for about $45 million.