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It’s the crack of dawn on Toorak’s leafy St Georges Road, and a small, fluorescent army is abuzz with activity.
Each workday morning in the winter dark, tradies in high-vis battle to find a car park for their utes and trucks, before unloading tools and making their way to the myriad, multimillion-dollar worksites that are a hive of activity on one of Melbourne’s most prestigious boulevards.
There’s seemingly no cost-of-living crisis or concern for escalating residential building costs here. Deliveries of imported fixtures and specialist fittings are the norm, and behind massive fences, landscaped gardens are installed already fully grown.
Online gambling and crypto billionaire Ed Craven is leading the spending with his almost $150 million development of the so-called “ghost house”, which the 31-year-old bought in 2022 for more than $80 million.
Craven, who co-founded gambling sites Stake and Kick and is estimated to be worth $5.2 billion, is building a sprawling above- and below-ground luxury estate on the plane tree-lined street. The development is set to put the nearby $70 million knockdown and rebuild by property developer Harry Stamoulis to shame.
Assessment of planning records reveals the construction would take the total value of development under way on the street north of $250 million.
At least three other multimillion-dollar new builds have recently been completed on the strip, and now Victorian Planning Minister Sonya Kilkenny is deliberating on an application to construct a $35 million apartment complex further round the bend. Original plans have been rejected by local authorities.
Property developer Toni Brandi, whose husband, David Brandi, is an accountant and businessman who in 2021 was banned by the corporate regulator from being a company director for five years, wants to spend the money building 18 homes on the site, which slopes down to the Yarra River.
Toni Brandi’s plans, submitted via her vehicle, Blood Diamond Group, were knocked back by Stonnington Council last year. Its 49-page report on the proposal was scathing, describing it as “an overdevelopment of the site”, with “excessive height and bulk as viewed from the Yarra”.
The building, the council said, would “dominate the St Georges Road streetscape”, and “exceeded the allowable height of 10 metres”, and the site was “not optimally located for a higher-density development given the lack of public transport and amenities in close proximity”.
“The overall design detailing and presentation of the development to the street is not considered to respond to the character or scale of the streetscape,” the report said. “Council’s urban design adviser is not supportive of the development.”
Kilkenny will now make her decision as part of the state government’s Development Facilitation Program, a fast-track pathway to approvals to reward well-designed housing.
“Suburbs shouldn’t be locked up for a lucky few – they should be areas where young families and workers have a chance to find a home in the places they love,” Kilkenny has said of the approval program.
To be eligible for the Development Facilitation Program, developments must provide at least 10 per cent affordable housing, a financial contribution to the Social Housing Growth Fund of at least 3 per cent of the estimated development cost, or an alternative contribution to the provision of affordable housing in Victoria. Under the program, the St Georges Road proposal could take up to four months to be assessed.
“Any proposal will be considered on its merits. As this is currently under assessment, it would be inappropriate to comment further,” a government spokesperson said.
The community can make submissions to the Department of Transport and Planning until a decision has been made. It is believed no other residential projects have been submitted through the Development Facilitation Program in Toorak.
Toni Brandi was contacted for comment but did not respond.
On a lesser, albeit still multimillion-dollar scale, planning approval from the council is also being sought by Melbourne neurosurgeon Richard Bittar and his wife, Renee, for a $7.5 million rework of their heritage-listed mansion, Karum, which they bought in 2024 for $40 million.
The home has a pool and a tennis court. Now, the couple want to dig out a new basement that can house 10 cars, as well as adding a two-storey extension at the back, a replacement pool, pool house, and a gym.
Elsewhere, and among many other projects under way, a $4.4 million renovation of the heritage-listed home Edzell continues. The mansion is owned by millionaire Victorian Liberal Party powerbroker and Humm Group founder Andrew Abercrombie.
Beyond that, a $17 million renovation to Blair House, which was bought for $74.5 million by billionaire Message Media founder Grant Rule, is also under way. Rule is putting in a 10-car underground garage, too – a car space, perhaps, for each bedroom of the 10-bedroom house.
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