This community is gold: why Claudia Karvan will never leave
THE unique east Redfern warehouse that was home to actor Claudia Karvan for 15 years hit the market this week, but she’s staying in the neighbourhood saying “raising a family in this community is gold”.
The four-level residence, which has four bedrooms, three bathrooms and a garage, is in a secluded laneway off Bourke St at 1/17 Charles St.
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Just one of the unique features of the 280 sqm property is its north-facing rooftop terrace with city skyline views, where Karvan’s family enjoyed the rooftop open-air shower and bath tub.
Speaking to the Wentworth Courier exclusively, Karvan said she and long-time partner, engineer Jeremy “Jez” Sparks, love taking their children, Audrey, 16, and Albee, 12, and black regal shepherds over the bridge at the end of the cul-de-sac into Moore Park and into the parklands beyond.
“Our kids have formed lifetime bonds because they were able to run all around the area,” Karvan said.
“It was like a Ruth Park novel except with better cafes!”
She added that the local schools, the popular Bourke Street Public and Crown Street Public, had become “a hub”.
“The [Bourke St] bike path takes pride of place in the community,” she said.
“I can’t imagine ever leaving Redfern.”
Karvan owns other properties in her prized neighbourhood — a nearby terrace the actor bought for $1,842,000 in 2016 and a one-bedroom apartment in Bourke St she paid $610,000 for in 2014.
The Charles St warehouse residence is up for November 3 auction via Cobden and Hayson Surry Hills principal Brigitte Blackman, who has set a $2.7 million price guide.
It comes with a range of quirky fittings and fixtures, such as the garage door from a Clovelly Service Station; railway ceiling lights from Carriageworks in the open-plan living space; teak doors from Bali and a steel staircase from a 1960s factory.
It’s the best of the five residences in the former clothing factory, purchased by Sparks’s family in 1994 as a headquarters for the Gay and Lesbian Assoociation of Dance, headed by Sparks’s mother, Julie Korner.
Jez, a highly successful engineer who runs his own firm, Event Engineering, converted the warehouse into residences in 2004, and said the sale was a hugely emotional one.
“I laid every brick myself,” he said.
The pair have hosted film and music stars at the home, including close friends Noah Taylor, Tex Perkins, Simon Baker and Joel Edgerton.
Originally published as ‘This community is gold’: why Claudia Karvan will never leave
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