Up for sale: the R30m stairway down to heaven
A RETIRED investment bank analyst is selling the ultimate man cave — blasted deep into a cliff and with a 4 000-bottle wine cellar, banquet table and helipad — for R30-million.
South African Michael Green just wanted to get to the beach from his cliff-top property in Tasmania, Australia.
He could not bring himself to spoil the view so he got mine engineers to bore, blast and conceal a vast tunnel system below the earth. It turned into the largest and most unconventional private wine cellar in Australia.
Designed by South African structural engineer Danie Hugo, it features a five-storey spiral staircase down into the rock, a subterranean kayak storeroom, four more storeys of underground stairs and bank-vault security doors. The wine cellar has its own power system and boasts a banquet table that seats 32.
Above ground there is nothing but a large shed, excavations for a house yet to be built and a helipad.
The 8ha property is on a pristine bay 15km north of Hobart. Green supervised the project over three years while living in the exclusive Hobart suburb of Battery Point.
Hugo told the Sunday Times: “I have to say, I really admire the lengths Michael went to in order to preserve the amazing natural beauty on this property. Originally we were going to do a discreet outside stair system, but he thought about the visual impact and went ‘nah’. Then we were going to do a shaft with a lift.
“The project kind of evolved after that. It seemed crazy at first and took a pretty rare combination of mining techniques, design and engineering. But in the end it was Michael’s vision and his sincere wish not to spoil the landscape.”
Hugo said it was “sheer coincidence” that he and his client were South Africans, “but I guess you could say it helped that we had the same values and that South African sense of anything being possible”. Hugo, an engineer involved in the construction of Free State Stadium in Bloemfontein, moved to Hobart from Cape Town in 2003.
Grant Atherton, a director of Hobart engineering firm JMG, said the plan had become more elaborate with each challenge encountered. “The client had the vision and pockets deep enough to make it happen. Then, when we went with the spiral staircase, he realised you don’t want to cart kayaks down those stairs, so why not have a space to store them in the tunnel?”
Hugo said once the cellar and 4 000 bottles of premium wine had been added, heavy steel doors were chosen to seal both ends of the tunnel.
“The cliff door is quite something. Rock cladding was added to camouflage it,” he said. “I actually brought a friend around on the ocean side and challenged him to pick it out; he couldn’t.”
He said a mining company used explosives to blast a horizontal shaft 65m back from the cliff face.
Green settled on a design for “a very modern house with lots of glass” before terminating the project and opting to return to South Africa. He could not be reached for comment. Estate agent Brian Watchorn said Green had enjoyed a successful banking career in Hong Kong.
He said it was the most unusual listing in his career. Three potential buyers had already toured the property, which could be exploited as a restaurant or tourism venture, he said.
“The owner originally planned to put in a vineyard and did build a large shed on the property.
“There are tremendous possibilities,” Green said.