Tartak family list Airlie Beach trophy spread Mandalay House for about $20m

As Queensland’s high-end market moves into top gear, the state’s ultimate luxury getaway home, Mandalay House, has been returned to the market by the Rich Lister Tartak family for about $20 million.

This is the Mediterranean-style trophy home at Airlie Beach that took property developer and yacht seller Neil Murray and his wife Denise more than three years to build and comes complete with a private helipad, marina, two-jet-ski docks and a boat shed.

It hits the market just days after widespread, but unconfirmed, reports that Queensland’s house price record was smashed recently by the $34 million sale of Noosa’s Webb House at Sunshine Beach, smashing the $25 million high of a year ago for the Gold Coast home of former AFL player-turned-property developer Tony Smith and his wife Simone to the billionaire Pask family.

Christie’s International’s Ken Jacobs, who has listed the property with Ray White Whitsunday’s Mark Beale, said the property returns to the market because the owners are spending more time on business interests in Sydney and would like to see another family enjoy the property.

The opulent mansion is a study in trophy home inclusions. A porte cochere entry and marble staircase leads to seven bedrooms, all with a private sitting room and en suite, the main spread over 144 square metres with a spa en suite.

There is a home office with a separate reception room, library, and living areas that overlook the resort-style swimming pool and the Coral Sea, and a separate guest cottage.

Airlie Beach’s high-end market has also enjoyed a surge in activity in the wake of the pandemic. The Whitsundays property Chesapeake Whitsunday was sold by Hog’s Breath Cafe co-founder Don Algie last October for $6.5 million to horse racing personality Alan Galloway.

Mr Beale says he is talking to about two people from Melbourne every day who want to move there. Further, the demand – predominantly from Melbourne – has seen a surge in demand for luxury holiday rentals.

“In the last six months, we sold more than 15 properties for more than $1 million. For a bit of perspective in the six months prior we sold five in that range,” Mr Beale said.

The 4200 square metre property is no stranger to the high-end property market after it spent four years on and off the market from 2013, initially with $25 million hopes, until it sold for $14 million to interests linked to Sydney-based Bingo Industries founder Tony Tartak.

More recently, Mr Beale said, the property has been substantially upgraded and marketed as a high-end rental for $20,000 a night.

Tony Tartak and his family were ranked 165th on this year’s Australian Financial Review Rich List 200 with an estimated worth of $679 million thanks to the family’s skip bin company founded in 2005 with just four trucks and 100 bins that has since been transformed into the $2 billion-plus Bingo Industries group with more than 300 trucks on the road.