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Nicole O’Neil’s new home has quite a lot to live up to. Less than a year after The Real Housewives of Sydney star told Home Beautiful it would take a “real-estate unicorn” to convince her to permanently leave her spectacular Vaucluse residence, Nicole and husband Adam O’Neil have found exactly that–snapping up a grand Bellevue Hill estate for $17 million.
The couple have emerged as the buyers of the five-bedroom, three-bathroom property. It sits privately on approximately 1346 square metres in Sydney’s prestigious eastern suburbs. Built in 1925, the stately home was extensively renovated in 1939, when a second storey was added. And despite its eight-figure price tag, Nicole already has a few changes in mind.
“For now, we plan on new carpets and a fresh coat of paint,” she told The Sydney Morning Herald, adding: “The energy of the home is magnificent.”
Given Nicole’s flair for transforming a house into something unmistakably her own, we suspect the decorating may not end there.
Inside Nicole O’Neil’s new home
Hidden from the street, Nicole O’Neil’s new home is an elegant slice of old Sydney. It has beautifully proportioned interiors, established gardens and harbour outlooks. Four of its five bedrooms are positioned upstairs, including the main king suite, while a fifth bedroom with its own ensuite sits on the lower level. Outside, a terraced garden enjoys views stretching across the harbour from Rose Bay towards Mosman and Manly.
The property was marketed by Michael Pallier and Di Wilkenfeld of Sydney Sotheby’s International Realty.
While Nicole’s former home embraced polished, personality-packed interiors, the Bellevue Hill property offers something quite different: an established grand residence with almost a century of history behind it. And it’s easy to see the potential. Generous rooms, soaring ceilings, original-style fireplaces and traditional windows provide the bones for the layered interiors Nicole loves. The sprawling grounds offer something increasingly difficult to find in Sydney’s eastern suburbs.
The home has a serious entertaining potential
Anyone familiar with Nicole’s interiors knows that entertaining is never an afterthought. When Home Beautiful toured Nicole and Adam’s previous Vaucluse home, she told us she could just as easily cook for 24 people as two. The family had hosted everything from a 150-person sit-down dinner in a marquee to a children’s foam party. They even installed a sushi train on their enormous kitchen island for one celebration.
Her background as a professional event planner was evident throughout the property, which balanced formal rooms with spaces designed to actually be lived in. Nicole O’Neil’s new home appears to offer just as much scope for entertaining, albeit on an even grander scale.
The expansive garden is particularly enticing, with broad lawns and established landscaping creating the kind of setting made for long lunches, parties and family gatherings.
The ‘real-estate unicorn’ Nicole was waiting for
The purchase is especially interesting given what Nicole told Home Beautiful when we toured her former residence in 2025. At the time, Nicole and Adam had considered selling but she admitted finding something worthy of replacing their much-loved house wouldn’t be easy.
“What we have is very hard to replicate, so it would have to be a very special property to replace this,” she said. “I really do love my home.”
Turns out, she wasn’t kidding. The couple sold their Vaucluse property for $23.35 million in July before purchasing the Bellevue Hill estate for $17 million. And, the new house certainly ticks the “very special” box.
Will Nicole O’Neil renovate her new home?
For the moment, Nicole’s plans sound refreshingly restrained: carpet and paint. But we’ll be watching this one. Her previous renovation included a vast marble kitchen, a butler’s pantry created from a former TV room, detailed wainscoting, and sophisticated formal entertaining spaces, before Nicole layered in art, antiques and collected pieces to give the interiors their distinctive personality. The century-old bones of Nicole O’Neil’s new home provide an entirely different canvas.
And if her last house taught us anything, it’s that Nicole knows exactly how to make a beautiful property feel completely personal.
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