Views, cafes and luxury living: Three of the best harbourfront suburbs with a village vibe

Sitting on the harbour foreshore, full of great cafes, restaurants, bars and parks, and brimming with a wonderful village atmosphere, they are the suburbs that are home to some of the best real estate in the world.

And our pick of the best has to be Lavender Bay on the lower north shore, the winner of the Domain title of the most liveable place in Sydney; Balmain in the inner west with marvellous harbour views and some of the country’s most bijoux boutiques; and Elizabeth Bay in the east boasting delectable dining.

“They’re all stunning blue-chip suburbs with the kind of top real estate that would pass muster anywhere in the world,” says leading Sydney agent Vicki Laing of Laing Real Estate. “But it’s that buzzy village feel of a real community that helps make them so popular with everyone.”

Lavender Bay

Punching far above its weight, tiny Lavender Bay is consistently considered one of the very best places to live in Sydney. Close to the CBD and North Sydney employment hubs, it has great harbour views, schools, shops, cafes and public transport, with ferries, trains and buses.

It’s soon to have a top-notch building of new luxury apartments, too. Blue Lavender Bay is the redevelopment of the former Samsung commercial building on Lavender Street by Aqualand Australia, with design by leading architects PTW and selling through CBRE.

“It has an unparalleled location right on the harbour, with a northerly aspect,” says Aqualand head of sales and marketing Alex Adams.

“Lavender Bay also has a real village feel, not commercialised like the North Sydney CBD, while having stunning views,” he says. “And the design and quality of Blue Lavender Bay’s finishes are well above anything else on the lower north shore.”

The 21-level Blue Lavender Bay building will have 125 pet-friendly apartments, including SOHOs, as well as one, two and three-bedroom apartments with balconies or wintergardens.

It’s likely to attract people searching for the very best Sydney has to offer, like neighbours Nicole Kidman and Keith Urban, who have two penthouse apartments in the nearby block Latitude as well as a third apartment as a home office.

“It’s a very desirable area,” says Gerry McPhee of buyers’ agents Hand McPhee. “It’s very popular as it’s so close to the harbour, as well as being such a beautiful place with ferries and buses and the North Sydney rail station, and having the North Sydney commercial area and major hub of Crows Nest so near.”

Lavender Bay resident and artist Peter Kingston moved to the suburb in 1972 to work with the late Brett Whiteley and share half his house, and hasn’t been able to bring himself to move away since. “You never forget how privileged you are to live here,” he says, sitting on his veranda in the evening, looking out at the lights of Luna Park.

“It’s such an incredible place for artists. Wendy [Whiteley] has made her beautiful garden here and I’ve also built a garden around the public toilets and got a trompe l’oeil artist to paint the door. A lot of people visit here as it’s so amazing, and everyone is so friendly.”

One of the loveliest features of the suburb is its own bay walk along the harbour foreshore, lined with Kingston’s bronze sculptures of classic Australian cartoon characters created by artists May Gibbs, Dorothy Wall and Norman Lindsay.

There are also plenty of restaurants and cafes in the locale, including at nearby Kirribilli and McMahons Point. Right in Lavender Bay, however, is one of the most unusual cafes in Sydney, Bay Ten Espresso, in an old heritage warehouse in the base of the harbour bridge.

“I don’t think there’s anywhere like it in the world in such a unique location,” says operations director Christie Bannister. “There’s so much character here and it’s such a pleasant spot. So many tourists come to visit, as well as locals dropping in, and everyone is so friendly, it feels like family.”

The Blue Lavender Bay building is likely only to add to its prestige vibe. The off-the-plan sales of its penthouses, one for $9.5 million and another for $10.5 million, smashed the price record – twice – for apartment-living north of the Harbour Bridge with a rate of $61,000 per square metre. The prices of the available off-the-plan apartment stock of SOHOs, one, two and three-bedrooms range from $1.05 million to $8 million. There will also be four retail spaces below, and a 24-7 concierge service.

“We’ve already had quite a mix of buyers,” says Alex Adams. “Locals from the lower north shore, people from the upper north shore, and others from the east and from Pyrmont.”

Elizabeth Bay

Despite not having had any new headline luxury developments in the past five years, Elizabeth Bay has seen far more than its fair share of record-breaking sales of large heritage houses and penthouse apartments.

The mansion Boomerang was bought for $20.7 million in 2002 and kickstarted the whole trend for Sydney trophy homes. Other properties such as Berthong, whose previous owners include Russell Crowe and Rupert Murdoch and was offered for sale at $37 million, kept it going. Tresco, which was put up for sale in 2017 for $50 million, continued to give the suburb its blue-chip gloss.

Luxury apartments with spectacular views of the harbour have also been snapped up for top prices. Each of the nine apartments in the One Onslow Avenue development were sold on completion in 2007, with the penthouse hitting $13 million; the Pomeroy penthouse last year went for $10.05 million; another at Villa Caprera for $8.25 million and the next at Del Rio for $8 million-plus.

“Elizabeth Bay has the harbourfront but then it also has the village lifestyle, especially when you wander up to neighbouring Potts Point,” says Vicki Laing of Laing Real Estate.

“We haven’t really had many new developments lately, but we’re getting more and more people downsizing from areas like Palm Beach and Mosman because it’s such an interesting area.”

Balmain

Balmain is a top harbourside neighbourhood, with a great community buzz, yet it too doesn’t have any new luxury product coming onto the market. The most recent was The Chelmsford on Montague, a collection of large apartments at an old heritage building, and Bijou, 29 units behind the facade of the old Bijou Theatre.

“We get a couple of small boutique developments every couple of years, but they’re few and far between,” says Karl Howard of Ray White Balmain. “But prices here always command a premium as people love its village feel, its cafes, restaurant and boutiques and its mix of people.”

Danny Cobden, director of agents Cobden & Hayson, agrees. He says it’s a suburb that’s home to a really interesting, eclectic mix of people, on a peninsula surrounded by water, just one traffic light away from the CBD.