Buyer revealed in $35M sale of Ryman’s Moondah Estate
The Weekly SOURCE reported Ryman Healthcare ended its long-planned village at Moondah Estate, Mt Eliza, on 8 December. Ryman paid a reported $37.5 million for the former Melbourne Business School campus in 2016.
The purchaser of Ryman Healthcare’s Moondah Estate on Victoria’s Mornington Peninsula has now been identified, following the operator’s decision to walk away from its long-planned village project at the site.
The buyer of the $35 million 8.9-hectare clifftop property is Village Glen founder and Managing Director Chas Jacobsen, The Weekly SOURCE can reveal.
The Weekly SOURCE reported Ryman Healthcare ended its long-planned village at Moondah Estate, Mt Eliza, on 8 December. Ryman paid a reported $37.5 million for the former Melbourne Business School campus in 2016.
The sale ended Ryman Healthcare’s almost decade-long effort to secure approval for a $317 million continuum-of-care village, including 104 independent apartments, 27 assisted living suites and a 60-bed aged care centre alongside the restoration of the 42-room Moondah Mansion.
Chad, who founded Village Glen in 1980 and turned it into Australia’s largest retirement village, will use the site as part of his family's property holdings to live in, not to develop as a village, Village Glen Executive Director and COO Peter Nilsson confirmed to The Weekly SOURCE.
The Jacobsen family own a number of properties neighbouring the historic site.
Moondah, which was built in 1888 for James Grice, was an opulent 42-room Victorian mansion.
Sir Reginald Ansett purchased Moondah in 1947 and restored the building into the five-star luxury Manyung Hotel, which was regarded as the most luxurious hotel on the Peninsula.
Ansett sold Manyung Hotel to the Australian Administrative Staff College in 1957, and it was run as an education facility until the site was sold to Ryman Healthcare in 2016.
