Earlier than final week, few Australians would’ve been conscious of the antics of millionaire property developer Tim Gurner, who made world headlines after calling for a “painful” 50 p.c enhance in unemployment to spur ”lazy” staff into motion.
However the ultra-elite who run in unique circles have lengthy been accustomed to the Wealthy Lister – not simply from the posh properties he builds, however for his New Age “cult-like” well being spa.
Saint Haven is a facility most common people would have bother imagining – a sort of cross between the American members-only Soho Membership and the fictional eerie wellness retreat from the e-book and TV sequence 9 Good Strangers.
These with money to burn flocked to snap up one of many restricted 500 memberships provided when the membership opened earlier this yr, forking out as much as $650 per week.
To be accepted, potential members needed to undergo a grueling five-stage software course of that included detailed interviews and medical screening.
Gurner stated “a considerable” variety of hopefuls have been knocked again.
Saint Haven, which Gurner describes as a $97 million “well being, wellness and anti-aging” model, opened its first web site in Collingwood in Melbourne in Could.
It focuses on eight key pillars: social connection, diet and supplementation, final luxurious, insights and monitoring, historic knowledge and fashionable science, restoration and anti-aging, motion and mindfulness, and power and conditioning.
He has described the method as unashamedly “fairly cult-like” and members are given particular gold medallions and black wristbands to put on to assist them establish one another outdoors the membership’s partitions.
Gurner, 40, is obsessive about staying younger and serving to others to do the identical, telling The Australian Monetary Evaluation: “We would like you to stay to 100, however not simply stay to 100 – however stay to 100 feeling wonderful. That’s the purpose.”
He himself pops between 50 and 60 tablets a day addressing a variety of illnesses, all primarily based on the outcomes of complete medical screening he undergoes every month.
He advised the AFR: “I get about 250 totally different assessments of my bloods, which can say: ‘This month you’re poor in (vitamin) D, your testosterone is up or down.’ Then the physios, dietitians, medical doctors on name set my regime.”
That excessive “bio-hacking” routine will quickly be on provide to Saint Moritz members, involving common blood assessments, mind scans and MRIs, reportedly at an annual value of $160,000.
Till then, Saint Haven members have a variety of different intriguing therapies to select from.
There’s a 100-degree sauna, sometimes adopted by a number of minutes in a frosty ice tub, in addition to breath work lessons held in “meditation cave” and led by one-time rugby league star Eugene Koning.
Contained in the hollowed-out room performs a chanting monitor specifically composed by a European excessive athlete-turned wellness guru often called ‘Iceman’.
There’s cryotherapy, a menu of nutritional vitamins and elixirs delivered through intravenous drip, hyperbaric champers dousing inhabitants with pure oxygen, and crimson mild remedy.
Non secular therapeutic can also be on provide for these in the hunt for some mystical stability of their lives.
The membership is staunchly alcohol-free however does provide “semi hallucinogenic” cocktails, together with a beverage produced from kava. Gurner believes that’s OK as a result of it’s “a pure drug”.
“We’re having a dialog with members round whether or not they need some medicinal alcohol, so there’s issues like 100 per cent agave tequilas, some fairly wonderful kombuchas on the market,” he advised the AFR.
Superstar nutritionist Luke Hines, a former collaborator of paleo-pusher Pete Evans, helped to plot the eating menu.
In a single interview spruiking the membership, Gurner insisted the clientele wouldn’t simply be wealthy and elite, saying he needed to focus on “a totally various combine” of members.
However then itemizing examples like “an unimaginable musician … one of many high bankers in Australia, a jewelry retailer proprietor, an artist, a restaurant proprietor …”
Gurner plans to open additional websites throughout Melbourne within the coming years, adopted by Sydney, Brisbane and the Gold Coast, earlier than taking the idea internationally, beginning in Los Angeles.
Fact about his ‘self-made’ standing
Talking on the Australian Monetary Evaluation’s Property Summit final week, Gurner attacked “lazy” and “conceited” staff, significantly these within the development sector.
In now-infamous feedback, he referred to as for an unappreciative workforce to cop a “painful” dose of actuality within the type of an unemployment surge within the magnitude of “40 or 50 per cent”.
“We have to see ache within the economic system,” Gurner advised the gang. “We have to remind people who they work for the employer, not the opposite method round.
“There’s been a scientific change the place staff really feel the employer is extraordinarily fortunate to have them, versus the opposite method round. It’s a dynamic that has to alter.”
The tone-deaf feedback ignited a firestorm, incomes the ire of unions, enterprise leaders and politicians from each ends of the ideology spectrum.
Labor MP Jerome Laxale stated it was a viewpoint one would possibly “affiliate with a cartoon supervillain” whereas his celebration colleague Sam Rae described it as a type of “guacamole economics.”
Liberal backbencher Keith Wolahan stated the developer “couldn’t be extra out of contact”.
Gurner was changed into memes, described as all the pieces from “obscene” to “offensive”, savaged by social media critics, and ultimately pressured into making a grovelling apology.
By then, the fury had unfold outdoors Australia, with American congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez re-sharing the filmed remarks with the caption: “Reminder that main CEOs have skyrocketed their very own pay a lot that the ratio of CEO-to-worker pay is now at among the highest ranges ever recorded”.
The final time Gurner was the topic of broad, mainstream media consideration was a number of years in the past when he stated the lack of most younger Australians to afford their very own residence was as a consequence of their penchant for take-away espresso smashed avocado brunches.
The implication gave the impression to be that others may very well be simply as profitable as him in the event that they pulled themselves up by the bootstraps, made sacrifices and diligently saved cash.
In actuality, Gurner himself has conceded prior to now that his early monetary prowess was thanks nearly solely to cash given to him by different individuals.
His first foray into actual property funding was an residence bought in Melbourne, which he renovated and flipped for a revenue, all financed with a $115,000 mortgage from his boss.
He then secured a $97,000 enterprise mortgage with the assistance of a $22,000 reward from his grandfather to open a health club, which later he bought to a competitor for a tidy revenue.
In his mid-20s, Gurner went to work for Wealthy Lister Morry Schwartz, who turned his mentor, and at 30 based The Gurner Group.
Nowadays, the corporate has 1000’s of flats throughout a number of developments within the work, with an estimated pipeline worth of $6.5 billion.
“The previous 10 years has been a tremendous interval of development to get the place we’re,” he advised The Australian.
“However that is simply the premise of a platform to reap the benefits of the place the market goes now. We’ve obtained quite a bit that we need to do.”
He’s now betting on an “almighty growth” in actual property costs in addition to “an almighty rental disaster” to safe his continued success.
“You’ve obtained a scenario the place there’s no provide and immigrants are coming again, worldwide college students and the Chinese language are returning, and so we’re going to have an almighty rental disaster,” Gurner advised the newspaper.
“In some unspecified time in the future within the subsequent six months to 18 months, you’re going to have an almighty growth. The federal government goes to should do one thing to loosen up lending. So (the market) ought to stabilise after which take off.”
The ‘future’ of residential improvement
Gurner is value an estimated $436 million, putting him at 192 on The Australian’s Wealthy 250 record. In the meantime, the AFR Wealthy Record places his value at a a lot greater $533 million.
Billionaire property developer Harry Triguboff, whose fortune sits at $27 billion, is the boss of the Meriton mega-empire and has described his modern as “the long run” of the sector.
Gurner’s astronomical rise within the house of only a decade reveals no indicators of slowing.
Earlier this yr, Gurner stated the corporate has nearly a dozen residence developments authorised and able to begin, however stated skyrocketing development prices have delayed works.
As well as, actual property finance group Qualitas has secured Gurner greater than $1.9 billion in capital funding to supercharge a deliberate pipeline of build-to-rent initiatives.
His portfolio of accomplished initiatives is spectacular. Amongst them, the high-end Saint Moritz improvement in St Kilda smashed worth data when its 20 flats went to market.
Residents take pleasure in a number of luxe facilities, together with a non-public day spa, library, indoor pool, cinema, champagne bar, sports activities lounge and a chauffeur-driven city automotive service.
Gurner and his spouse Aimee listed their very own penthouse residence within the complicated in March for a reported asking worth of $9.7 million.
Their sprawling two-story pad options 4 bedrooms, 5 bogs and 6 parking areas, in addition to floor-to-ceiling glass taking in picturesque bay vistas, 6m excessive ceilings, limitless luxurious finishes, a marble staircase that value $322,000 by itself, and a mammoth kitchen with a 5 mile lengthy island.
An outsized main bedroom includes a walk-in wardrobe the scale of a typical unit, with a non-public lounge with an open hearth and an ensuite rest room that comes with a $77,000 custom-designed sauna.
