Julia Gillard’s excited neighbours are planning a street picnic on the day her home of 15 years goes under the hammer.
The Altona house of the former Australian prime minister, at 9 Medford Street, has been listed for auction at 2pm on December 14 through Jas Stephens of Williamstown.
It will be open for inspection this Saturday.
Ms Gillard’s furniture is gone, but an empty fruit bowl reminds me of the last glimpse I, and most other Australians, had of this now-famous kitchen.
Neighbours are curious about all manner of things, including what happened to the original infamous fruit bowl.
RELATED: Former PM Julia Gillard’s Altona home for sale
In the mid-2000s, a photo of Ms Gillard sitting in a spotless kitchen with an empty fruit bowl sparked discussion that she was “barren” – unmarried and childless – in order to achieve her political ambitions.
Anthony Ang started the Beautiful Altona blog after shock jock Kyle Sandilands said Ms Gillard was living in a “rat hole”.
Mr Ang questioned why Ms Gillard’s home had attracted so much attention when he didn’t even know the addresses of other former prime ministers.
Mr Ang, who moved in a few doors away in 2007, said he only saw Ms Gillard from afar two or three times. He said it was disappointing he had never got to say hello to his famous neighbour.
One woman posted on Facebook that Ms Gillard’s house was so well known because it was “ordinary and when she became Prime Minister she said she would stay in her home in Altona and not move into The Lodge”. Ms Gillard, who has moved to Adelaide with her partner Tim Mathieson, bought the house in 1998 for $140,000.
“I bought my home in Altona because I loved the seaside village feel of Pier Street and the Esplanade,” she said.
The post-war house on a 603-square-metre block has three bedrooms, two bathrooms and two living areas. An extension was added in 2008, leading to a decked area in the backyard.
Anna Grech, a senior sales consultant with Jas Stephens, said, in a sense, she had to separate the vendor from her job, which is to sell the house at the best possible price.
But therein lies the difficulty.
“How do you price a house that’s owned by the ex-prime minister? How can you put a price on it? We just don’t know.”
» agrech@jasstephens.com.au or 0438 446 051
