Press - January 2012 to Date
POST Newspapers – 04 February 2012
Who’s moved into The Cliffe?
Furniture trucks were spotted in the front driveway of The Cliffe on Bindaring Parade, Peppermint Grove, on Friday, January 20.
Removalists said they had transported furniture into the historic house that afternoon.
A woman who is understood to have moved furniture into The Cliffe did not return calls from the POST this week.
Owner Mark Creasy put the 1884-built bungalow on the market in August last year and then listed it as “currently under negotiation”, before its listing was removed from the Shellabears website before Christmas.
A for sale sign at the property’s entrance was also taken down at that time. The property’s certificate of title indicates Mr Creasy is still the legal owner of the land.However, an employee at Landgate said transfer documents could take a month to process.
According to Landgate records, Mr Creasy has owned The Cliffe since April 2008, when the property was transferred out of then wife Sharon Creasy’s name and into his.
The Cliffe’s selling agent Chris Shellabear declined to comment.
POST Newspapers - Letters – 28 January 2012
Cliffe linked to vocal heritage
Brian Waldron
Brougham Street Woolloomooloo
Slim Dusty’s childhood home, a wood and iron house in Nulla Nulla Creek near Kempsey will be added to the New South Wales heritage register.
He wrote much of his early material there, including When The Rain Tumbles Down In July.
It seems it wasn’t long ago that the idea that a house could be considered a heritage property because of such a claim was something a bit foreign to some people in WA.
I think it prompts a question readers might want to ask themselves, “Are there houses that warrant heritage protection because of their association with literary or artistic figures?”
Are Rolf Harris’s home in Bassendean and Elizabeth Jolly’s house in Claremont such houses?
Does the Cliffe’s association with David McComb warrant such protection?
It’s hard to know what the future will consider valuable.
Will the writer of Tie Me Kangaroo Down Sport be remembered with more reverence that the writer of Wide Open Road?
However difficult, it is still something worth considering.
POST Newspapers – 21 January 2012
Second buyer circles Cliffe
A second party is interested in buying the controversial Cliffe property on Bindaring Parade, Peppermint Grove.
Planning company Greg Rowe and Associates advised the shire in December that landowner Mark Creasy was in discussions with the prospective buyer of The Cliffe, according to the council meeting agenda of that month.
The POST was told this week that a second party had expressed interest in the property just before Christmas.
“For sale” signs outside the property were taken down in December, along with The Cliffe’s online listing on the Shellabears website, but Mr Creasy and a Shellabears spokesperson refused to comment.
Mr Creasy holds a demolition licence and demolition planning approval for the property, but they are [not] transferable to a new owner.
A restrictive covenant, which provides that all future owners are not to “demolish, alter or modify all or any part of the residence” without the approval of the shire, will be validated if The Cliffe is sold.
The covenant does not include the servants’ quarters at the rear of the property.
Peppermint Grove CEO Anne Banks-McAllister said this week that she no longer wished to comment on the status of negotiations about The Cliffe.
Mr Creasy and Mr Shellabear did not return calls from the POST this week.
ABC News on-line 20 January 2012
Slim Dusty's house to go on heritage
register
Slim Dusty's childhood home will be added to the New South Wales heritage register, in a move timed to mark the start of the Tamworth Country Music Festival.
The undisputed king of Australian country music spent his early years growing up in a wood and iron house at Nulla Nulla Creek near Kempsey.He wrote much of his early material there, including the song When The Rain Tumbles Down In July.
NSW Heritage Minister Robyn Parker says there has been little alteration to the house since it was built in 1915.
"The 40th anniversary celebrations of the Tamworth Music Festival are an appropriate time to pay tribute to a music legend," she said.
POST Newspapers – 14 January 2012
Buyer in talks over The Cliffe
Negotiations are under way for the sale of The Cliffe, the historic home on Bindaring Parade in Peppermint Grove.
The shire says talks are taking place between an unknown buyer and owner Mark Creasy through selling agent Chris Shellabear.
Neither Mr Creasy nor Mr Shellabear would confirm there were sale talks before Christmas, when the “for sale” signs were taken down at the home and the listing was removed from the Shellabears website.
Mr Creasy’s demolition planning approval for the home had been extended by a year in December.
Peppermint Grove CEO Anne Banks-McAllister said on Tuesday: “I have spoken to our planner, who advises that we are aware that negotiations for the sale of The Cliffe have been occurring.
“However, we have not been advised if a sale has gone through or of any other changes to the status of The Cliffe.”
Mr Shellabear and Mr Creasy did not return calls from the POST this week.
The home was built in 1894 by Neil McNeil to showcase the use of hardwoods. The National Trust classified it in 1984 and included it on the Register of the National Estate in 1992.
It was entered on the WA Register of Heritage Places in 2004 and 2005 after a legal challenge to the initial listing.
The home’s removal from the register in 2008 was instigated by Cottesloe MP and now Premier Colin Barnett.
Mr Barnett was cleared of any wrongdoing by Parliament’s procedures and privileges committee in 2009.
