From Dubai to Dural, Innovative Vendor Selling Estate

It is a rare and exciting phenomenon to find a person who has scaled the dual peaks of risk and innovation and survived not just unscathed, but richer and even more interesting for the challenges.

Such is the case with the internationally acclaimed entertainment creator, Paul McCloskey, and his Dural estate which is now listed with Ray White Frenchs Forest.

Thirty-five years ago what is now a superlative property was 5.5acres (2.2ha) of virgin bush, with just a one bedroom cottage in place.

“I’d had a dream since I was in boarding school, of a sandstone house on acreage,” says Mr McCloskey, who bought the Dural block. “In 1983 it cost $125,000. That was a lot of money at the time.”

Mr McCloskey has a history of working in television, during a period recalled by those in the know as The Golden Years of TV. From working on a range of productions from Number 96, to Blankety Blanks, Mr McCloskey became enamoured with the possibilities of combining technology and entertainment.

In the years that followed he would create what has become an internationally preeminent company in the field of laser, light and fire spectaculars creating the biggest shows on earth.

And that company, Laservision, has been headquartered in his dream Dural estate.

Far from being an overpowering presence, the studio complex is in a large, separate building hidden from view from the five bedroom, sandstone Grand Manor House.

“It is separate enough so you don’t see it. But if you have a great idea at 2am, you can just go there and try it out. Innovation is not a 9 to 5 thing,” says the successful creator.

Laservision produces individual events and also creates and installs permanent displays in Dubai, Hong Kong and Singapore, a far cry from one of his earliest ‘shows’; the projection onto the sails of the Sydney Opera House for the announcement of the successful Sydney Olympic bid. An event which drew a world-wide TV audience of four billion people. Now Laservision reaches millions of people on a daily basis.

“I don’t watch the shows anymore; I’ve seen them a thousand times by the time they reach an audience. I just watch the awe in their faces,” says Mr McCloskey.

Innovation has meant highly complex and competent IT installations for the Laservision studio in Dural, including commercial power supply and a dedicated fibre optic link from the exchange which is capable of delivering well over 1GB internet speed.

However equally superlative is the accommodation and beauty of the landscape. It is a property of harmony, of an ideal balance in the fraught work/ life equation.

Set in the landscaped estate is in total 2,2575 sqm of internal space, spread across several buildings.

The five-bedroom Grand Sandstone Manor (755sqm), The Gatehouse (107sqm), The Coach House which includes a 14-car garage and workshop (323sqm) and the Studio (1,090qm) offer unprecedented property potential, surrounded by outdoor living spaces, lawns and terraces with peaceful water features including a water fall and lily pond.

Mr McCloskey may be a wizard when it comes to sensory experiences, but this deeply beautiful, highly desirable urban escape is perhaps his greatest show to date.