MARSHALL WHITE DIRECTOR LISTS $9M ESTATE
Prestige property veteran John Bongiorno is selling his sprawling Mornington Peninsula retreat, Musk Ridge Farm, complete with a pool, guest quarters and sweeping coastal views.
2 min
When introducing the 2026 Marshall White Prestige Property Index, the company’s group sales director, John Bongiorno, said he had high hopes for the luxury real estate market.
This positive outlook may have influenced his decision to sell his own home, Musk Ridge Farm. The 8ha Mornington Peninsula property has come to market with a price guide of $9 million to $9.5 million.
“Looking ahead, international influences are likely to remain an important factor shaping Melbourne’s prestige market throughout 2026,” he wrote.
“Australia’s reputation as a stable and desirable place to live will continue to attract strong interest from expatriate buyers returning home, and we are already seeing an increase in enquiries from this group, particularly for properties in Melbourne’s most established school zones and blue-chip suburbs.”
No doubt the company director expects demand to extend into regional Victoria. His
Flinders estate, which has pastoral and bushland views to the waters of Westernport and Phillip Island, last traded in 2017 for $4 million.
Its 2026 price guide is in line with other recent Flinders transactions. In late 2025, 2275 Mornington Flinders Rd sold for about $8.75 million, and 88 King St sold for $12.25 million.
Bongiorno’s landmark peninsula property was designed by architect Stephen Akehurst to create a coast-meets-country lifestyle estate for avid entertainers or weekend guest retreats.
The private seven-bedroom, eight-bathroom residence features manicured English-style gardens, a self-cleaning mosaic-tiled pool and spa, converted stable guest quarters, a separate games room with bar, a barbecue pavilion, and a self-contained manager’s cottage.
With more than four decades of prestige-market experience, Bongiorno says the same guidance he gives clients has shaped his own property decisions: desirable locations and long-term lifestyle appeal will sustain high demand.
“Regardless of market conditions, quality real estate fundamentals remain the most important consideration. For me, that has always been about location, quality of construction and a home’s ability to stand the test of time,” Bongiorno says.
“Homes that consistently perform over the long term are those positioned in tightly-held locations with genuine lifestyle appeal and quality design that will remain relevant for years to come.”
His Hamptons-style homestead features spacious interiors and designer elements, including a large entry foyer, American Oak floors, high ceilings, and multiple French doors opening onto patios and terraces. Modern amenities include hydronic heating, integrated cooling, smart home technology, and CCTV security.
The palatial main living zone is bookended by twin open fireplaces and crowned by a central iron-ring chandelier. A glass conservatory dining area captures the natural backdrop, and a quartz stone kitchen features a big island bench, Bertazzoni appliances, a butler’s pantry, a SubZero fridge/freezer, and two Vintec wine fridges.
Off the kitchen, there is also a mudroom, a powder room, a bathroom, and a commercial-grade laundry.
The ground-floor main bedroom suite includes two walk-through wardrobes, a shower ensuite, a fireplace, and access to the wraparound veranda. Upstairs, there are two additional bedrooms with en-suites and built-in wardrobes, along with a study area.
Outside, beyond the pool terrace and barbecue pavilion, the grounds feature fenced paddocks, a spring-fed dam, an automatic front gate, a machinery shed, a double garage, plus multiple driveway parking bays.
Bordered by the Main Ridge Nature Conservation Reserve and Manton Creek, Musk Ridge Farm is close to Red Hill and Flinders townships, and is surrounded by world-class wineries, golf courses, and the peninsula’s popular beaches.
Mirzaian is a senior director within CBRE’s Development NSW business, operating across the company’s Western Sydney and North Sydney offices
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Edge Design Consultants has remained a relatively small studio, allowing Rizk to maintain personal involvement across its projects.
4 min
The most convincing luxury interiors rarely need to announce their value.
Their appeal is revealed more gradually: in the weight of a door, the texture of a natural material, the proportion of the furniture or the way lighting changes the mood of a room after dark.
It is this quieter expression of luxury that has shaped the work of Charlie Rizk, founder and design director of Sydney studio Edge Design Consultants.
Established in 2006, the boutique practice works across residential and commercial interiors, offering services that range from architectural interior design and material selection to bespoke furniture, furnishing and final styling.
Its portfolio spans family homes, waterfront retreats, commercial workplaces and apartments within some of Sydney’s most prominent residential buildings. But according to the studio’s philosophy, the common thread is not a readily identifiable aesthetic.
Instead, it is an emphasis on longevity, personalisation and a close relationship between designer and client.
From the salon to the design studio
Rizk’s route into interior design was unconventional.
Before establishing Edge Design Consultants, he founded the Sydney hair salon Escapadehfb. While the two businesses operate in different creative fields, Rizk’s early career gave him experience in interpreting highly personal client briefs.
That ability to listen — and to distinguish between what a client initially requests and how they ultimately want to feel — became central to his work in interiors.
A client may arrive with a collection of reference images, favourite colours or individual pieces of furniture. The designer’s role is not simply to assemble those elements. It is to identify the underlying preference connecting them and translate it into a coherent environment.
That distinction becomes particularly important in bespoke residential design, where the success of a room is determined by more than its appearance in photographs.
The interior must accommodate routines, collections, entertaining, children, pets, privacy and storage. Materials must also be selected according to how they will perform after years of use.
A deliberately boutique model
Edge Design Consultants has remained a relatively small studio, allowing Rizk to maintain personal involvement across its projects.
For clients, that structure offers continuity. Architectural detailing, fixtures, finishes, furniture and styling can be developed as parts of the same design narrative rather than commissioned as disconnected stages.
The studio’s full-service model can begin with spatial planning and architectural interiors before progressing through mood boards, material selections, custom furniture and the final installation.
This continuity is particularly valuable on complex homes involving architects, builders, specialist trades, suppliers and landscape designers. Decisions made at the beginning of a project can affect everything that follows, from the dimensions of a custom sofa to the placement of lighting, power and joinery.
Bringing the interior designer into the process early can help prevent decorative decisions from being imposed on a largely completed building.
It also creates opportunities for furniture, art and objects to inform the architecture itself.
The case against a signature look
Many successful designers become associated with a recognisable palette or recurring visual device. Edge takes a less prescriptive position.
The studio’s work includes warm, layered family interiors as well as more restrained contemporary apartments and sharper commercial spaces. Its stated priorities are durability, considered materials and an understanding of the way each space will be occupied.
This does not mean abandoning a point of view. Rather, the designer’s sensibility is expressed through proportion, editing and consistency instead of a formula repeated from one project to another.
For affluent homeowners, this can be an important distinction. A heavily trend-driven interior may look current when completed but quickly reveal the moment in which it was designed.
An enduring home needs enough character to feel individual without becoming hostage to a short-lived fashion.
Natural stone, timber, metalwork and well-made furniture can provide that foundation, but material expense alone does not create permanence. The detailing, installation and relationship between the materials matter just as much.
Designing from the building out
Edge’s published portfolio includes residential projects in Pymble, Epping, North Rocks, Strathfield, Pyrmont and Wagstaffe, along with the furnishing and styling of a residence in Crown Sydney. A Pymble residence (below) was featured on Channel Nine’s Australia’s Best House in 2023.
The scope varies between projects.
Some commissions involve complete architectural interior design, furniture and styling. Others focus on furnishing an existing residence, where the challenge is to introduce identity without altering the underlying architecture.
A penthouse, for example, may already possess exceptional views, finishes and proportions. The designer’s task is then to create intimacy, establish visual rhythm and ensure the furniture remains appropriately scaled to the volume of the rooms.
A freestanding family home presents different considerations. Storage, circulation, durability and the relationship between indoor and outdoor areas may take precedence over creating a formal sense of arrival.
The best result is not necessarily the most dramatic. It is the one in which the architecture, finishes, furniture and objects feel as though they were always intended to coexist.
Luxury as a personal experience
After 20 years, Edge Design Consultants sits within a design market transformed by social media and unprecedented access to international references.
Clients can now identify furniture, stone, lighting and interiors from around the world before their first conversation with a designer. That access can broaden a brief, but it can also produce an overwhelming collection of competing ideas.
The designer’s role is increasingly one of curation: deciding what belongs, what should be removed and which references can be translated convincingly into an Australian home.
For Rizk, the boutique scale of Edge allows that process to remain personal.
The studio’s version of luxury is therefore not defined by a single material, brand or visual signature. It lies in the time spent understanding a client, the care with which each element is selected and the sense that the completed space belongs specifically to the people living within it.
Fact box
- Designer: Charlie Rizk
- Role: Founder and design director
- Studio: Edge Design Consultants
- Established: 2006
- Location: Sydney, NSW
- Services: Architectural interior design, spatial planning, mood boards, fixtures and finishes, bespoke furniture, furnishing and styling
- Project types: Luxury residences, apartments, penthouses and boutique commercial interiors
- Selected locations: Pymble, Epping, North Rocks, Strathfield, Pyrmont, Wagstaffe, Macquarie Park and Crown Sydney
- Selected media: Australia’s Best House, Kanebridge Quarterly and Robb Report Australia
- Website: edgedesignconsultants.com.au
- Instagram: @edge_design_consultants
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