Elanor snaps up expansive Blue Mountains getaway

The Leura Gardens Resort in the Blue Mountains has a new owner.

The unlisted Elanor Hotel Accommodation Fund has added another asset to its burgeoning 19-strong portfolio of boutique properties, buying a Blue Mountains hotel for more than $20m.

Keen to cash in on the booming domestic tourism market, Sydney investment partners Arvi Rubenstein and Jonathan Wolf listed the hospitality asset, the Leura Gardens Resort, with price expectations of more than $20m earlier this year.

“We had a lot of interest in it, there were four genuine buyers, we had a lot of people looking at it for alternate use, people wanting to convert it to a retirement home and a couple of people wanting to operate it as a four-star boutique property,” said selling agent Wayne Bunz, national director of CBRE Hotels, this week.

Given its vacant possession status, the owners had expected the hotel – which is across the street from Leura Golf Club – could be rebranded, offered as a residential proposition for short or long stays or re-positioned as a retirement living option subject to council approvals.

Leura Gardens Resort in the Blue Mountains.

The hotel comes replete with restaurants, bars, conference facilities and event areas and has just undergone a $5m renovation over 14 months.

Previously known as the ­Nesuto Leura Gardens Resort, the property on almost 2ha was held by private investment company ARFW, which was once controlled by Mr Rubenstein and the late Frank Wolf, founder of Abacus Property and father of Jonathan Wolf, now the head of Centennial Property.

All up, the mid-scale resort consists of 92 rooms and suites over 18,793sq m of freehold land, as well as a two-bedroom manager’s dwelling.

Mr Bunz, said the hotel benefited from its proximity to the heritage-listed Blue Mountains National Park, adding that it was attractive to both the corporate and leisure market.

“The resort’s already significant corporate and leisure offering is supported by the region’s booming drive visitor market which, combined with the property’s significant business and development potential, will provide an investor with substantial operational upside,” Mr Bunz said.

CBRE said the resort offered the purchaser multiple income streams including short and long-term accommodation, multiple food and beverage options and a range of conference and events facilities.

Co-marketing agent and CBRE Hotels director Raymond Tran said that, with very few comparable resorts offered in the Blue Mountains area, the property was primed to capitalise on post-pandemic travellers.