Who won The Block Gatwick Hotel competition in 2018?
After announcing they were expecting a baby boy, New South Wales couple Hayden Vale, a 45-year old construction project manager and Sara Tumino, a 31-year old former flight attendant turned stay-at-home-mum, banked $100,000 in prizemoney winning the 14th season of The Block – a renovation of a former rooming house built in 1938 in Melbourne’s bayside St Kilda.
The pair will additionally pocket $545,000 – being the price their unit sold for over the reserve.
Interestingly, the buyers of one of the apartments – sisters Yvette Kelly and Rose Banks – were the long-time operators of The Gatwick when it was a rooming house. The pair sold the building at 34 Fitzroy Street to The Block producer Watercress for $10 million last year.
The top two penthouses are being purchased by the one buyer – Aconex co-founder Rob Phillpot. Oracle paid Mr Phillpot and business partner Leigh Jasper $1.6 billion for Aconex recently.
Five teams, comprising of ten contestants, competed in the three month long renovation competition.
Focus now shifts to another St Kilda property – the ex-Oslo Hotel on Grey Street – which Watercress is in the process of obtaining a permit to refurbish into five townhouses (read our story with the floorplans, here). Watercress paid a speculated $11.8 million for the Oslo Hotel earlier this year.
