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Bob Carr was a journalist at the now defunct magazine The Bulletin and his late wife Helena was running a cheque-printing factory in late 1979 when they purchased a house on the high side of the street in Maroubra.
It was a decent home upgrade for the young couple who had started out in a 1960s flat down the road. “We knew the house and the people who lived there well,” said the former Labor premier and foreign minister. “So when it came on the market we jumped on it.” Records show they paid $173,000.
The Maroubra home of Bob Carr was redesigned by architect Howard Tanner in the 1990s.
“It was a lot of money at the time,” he said. “I remember Paul Keating said to me, ‘don’t worry about it, young Robert, if nothing else you’ll at least set a new benchmark for the rest of the houses in the street’.”
Carr is expected to set another benchmark for French Street on April 6 when it goes to auction with a $5 million guide through PPD’s Alexander Phillips and Ray White Eastern Beaches’s Nader Hotait.
Former Premier Bob Carr is swapping Maroubra for nearby Coogee Beach.Credit: Louie Douvis
The sale plans follow the sudden death of Carr’s wife of 50 years in October last year, and his subsequent plans to move to Coogee, where he recently purchased a penthouse overlooking the beach for $8.8 million.
A lot has changed since the Carrs purchased their “forever home”, not least of which is the price of Sydney’s housing. At the time, the median house price in Sydney was $27,400. It is now nudging $1.6 million.
“This was the big step-up. What we regarded as a stylish house that we then rebuilt comprehensively with the help of [architect] Howard Tanner in the early 1990s,” Carr said.
The three-storey house on 578 square metres is set above basement garaging and has formal living and dining rooms, and four bedrooms, of which one is in self-contained quarters.
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