Cate Blanchett was born in Ivanhoe, a residential neighborhood in Melbourne (Australia) and responds to the medieval hero written by Sir Walter Scott. In 2006 she bought, together with her husband, the playwright Andrew Upton, a comfortable home in Prahan, her most central and exclusive area, about 18 minutes by car from the place where she was born. They paid around 700,000 euros for it at the current exchange rate. On March 9, the house goes up for auction and the actress, winner of the four most important awards in the film industry, hopes to sell it for between 2 and 2.2 million euros.
The property, with direct access to Victoria Gardens, the most attractive park in the area, was transformed from Victorian to contemporary style by the Alwill Architecture studio; Its wooden facade is painted black on one part and a natural finish on the other. In the bright interior, on two floors, we find three bedrooms and two bathrooms and an open space that combines living room, dining room and kitchen with glass walls.
The floors are made of wood and polished concrete and curiously, the master suite is on the ground floor and opens onto a porch, while the other two bedrooms are upstairs, along with a living room with a study corner and a loft. It also has a stone kitchen, terrace, private garden, solar panels and parking.
Blanchett and Andrew Upton have owned more properties in Australia: back in 1996 she began to enter the Sydney real estate market by purchasing a modest apartment, although one block from the beach. Two years later, she and Upton bought a house in Cogee for 400,000 euros and sea views, which they sold in 2011 for more than double that. In 2004 the couple bought a residence in Sydney built in 1877 for around nine million euros – which they renovated and expanded to sell in 2017 for 16.7 million – and in 2013 they bought a beachfront property in Elizabeth Bay. Settling in the United Kingdom, the mansion that is their main residence cost them 6.7 million euros. After next month's auction they will only have one apartment in New South Wales left in Australia.
