Better Homes & Gardens host selling her prized family hideaway
After downsizing 20 years ago, Noni Hazlehurst looks like she’ll be doing it again after listing her home in Queensland’s Gold Coast hinterland for sale.
The Better Homes & Gardens host was nearing the end of her decade-long stint on the show when she swapped her Blue Mountains property for The Gables in 2002 for $749,000.
With her two sons now all grown up, Halelhurst’s Tamborine Mountain property will be going under the hammer next month, as the TV presenter looks for another, smaller place to call home.
“I’m in the downsizing phase of my life again,” the 69-year-old said.
“My family is dispersed, as families tend to do, and so it’s got too much, so it’s time.”
Since she purchased it 22 years ago, Hazlehurst has put plenty of work into the four-bedroom, three-bathroom home, including updating the kitchen and bathrooms.
But, the former Play School presenter said it was the gardens that were a “labour of love”.
“There was a tropical garden here already here, but I’ve put in about nine different kinds of magnolias, some huge gardenia bushes, hydrangea and jasmine,” she said.
“The jacaranda is about to pop, the agapanthus are going nuts, and there are avocado trees and two mulberry trees.
“It has this rich, red volcanic soil here that is just so fertile, you can almost watch things growing. And we get proper seasons and real winters with log fires, and summer rarely gets above 30 [degrees].”
Hazlehurst moved from the Blue Mountains with little knowledge of the Gold Coast area and had fallen “in love with the environment” after visiting a nearby friend’s house.
Now that she’s looking for a new home, her love for the area means she won’t be looking too far.
“I’ve always wanted this sort of semi-rural environment, so I’ll try to replicate this but on a smaller scale,” she said.
The property itself is described as having an “enchanted forest feel” in the listing, hidden partially by the greenery Hazlehurst put her love into.
“Downsizing after raising the family here, the owner finds it time to move on, making way for a new generation to enjoy and cherish this beautiful home and garden,” the listing reads.
Inside, the house boasts a “library room”, as well as high ceilings, timber floors and lattice windows, and several ornate fireplaces.
The house will be auctioned through Ray White Rural at 10.30am on Friday, December 16.
Images: Ray White / @realnonihazlehurst (Instagram)