AFL legend Ron Barassi’s St Kilda home has hit the market for $2 million to $2.2 million. The three-bedroom terrace at Marli Place, once the residence of the football icon and his artist wife Cherryl, offers a rare glimpse into the life of a sporting giant. Situated above St Kilda’s Esplanade, the property looks across the palm trees to Port Phillip Bay and sits within a building that dates back to the 1860s.
The interior tells a story of two distinct personalities. Selling agent Frank Mlikota describes the space as the meeting of Ron’s football world and Cherryl’s artistic sensibility. The result is a home with a real “’70s and ’80s texture” and a hint of “Bacardi-era glamour.” It is not a house that appears to have been decorated according to strict rules, but rather one that has simply evolved over decades.
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Books fill an enormous wall-to-wall library, complete with a timber ladder. Artworks and sculptures are dotted almost casually around rooms. Soft, low-slung armchairs sit on a colorful kilim rug, while chrome dining chairs mingle with antique furniture. In one timber bookcase, a red Sherrin sits above a copy of Ron Barassi: Chronicling the Moments That Defined a Legend, surrounded by football books and memorabilia.
Yet there is something particularly lovely about the fact that these pieces haven’t been isolated or displayed museum-style. Football sits alongside art. Books sit beside family photos. Sculptures share shelves with everyday objects. This blending of eras is evident throughout the dining areas, where sleek white-and-chrome chairs sit beneath a warm timber ceiling beside an omate dark timber sideboard.
There’s no mistaking whose home this was: a red Sherrin and a book chronicling Ron Barassi’s legendary career sit among an assortment of football titles and personal objects. Even the dining spaces resist belonging to a single era. In one, sleek white-and-chrome chairs sit beneath the warm timber ceiling beside an omate dark timber sideboard. Another has exposed brick, black leather-and-chrome chairs and a sculptural timber pendant, with colorful geometric prints hung behind it.
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The legacy of Marli Place
The home’s extraordinary outlook becomes part of the decorating scheme, with St Kilda’s palms visible beyond the windows and a lively kilim-style rug adding color underfoot. Port Phillip Bay and St Kilda’s iconic palms are perfectly framed by one of the home’s grand arches—a view the Barassis enjoyed for more than four decades.
Of course, Ron and Cherryl represent only one chapter in the considerably longer story of Marli Place. The landmark terrace has stood above St Kilda’s esplanade for more than 160 years. St Kilda Historical Society records indicate it was built before 1864 by William Spottiswood for politician James Steward Johnston, with the broader terrace evolving significantly in the decades that followed. The society describes Marli Place as one of Melbourne’s best-known residential landmarks and says it is believed to be the city’s fourth-oldest surviving terrace.
Remarkably, Ron and Cherryl aren’t even its only links to Australian art and cultural history. Research published by the St Kilda Historical Society notes that celebrated Australian artist Sidney Nolan also lived at Marli Place for a period. More than a century and a half after it was built, the building remains unmistakable on the Esplanade.
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The property’s original staircases tell another part of the story. Heritage research by the City of Port Phillip records that the terrace was converted into flats around 1926, with the stairs among the most obvious alterations while much of its mid-Victorian character remained. Outside, a small enclosed courtyard reveals yet another layer of the home’s history. Weathered original brick walls surround timber decking and potted greenery, while large glazed doors connect it back to the dining area. Nothing feels too pristine. That’s precisely its charm.
The hot tub no longer exists, but traces of that era remain in the house: the low-profile furniture, sculptural lighting, exposed brick, timber panelling and wonderfully eclectic collision of objects and influences. It’s hard to imagine a more gloriously 1970s scene than the well-documented occasion television heavyweight Mike Willesee interviewed Ron and Cherryl while the couple were sitting in their home’s hot tub.
