Cafe queen Therese Moussa and her husband Ramzey Choker have bought a mansion for $10.4million in one of Sydney’s ritziest suburbs.
But it seems the business brains behind the hugely successful The Grounds of Alexandria do not intend to live in their new digs in Sydney’s eastern suburbs.
Instead, Ms Moussa, the creative director and head stylist for The Grounds and two other outlets in the group, plans to turn her designer skills to Roslyn in Coogee, which was built in 1886.
‘I fell in love with this house. It’s a gem that will be a fun project to bring to life, keeping all that beautiful heritage,’ she told Domain.
The seven bedroom home was initially built for wealthy timber merchant Charles Saxton during a construction boom fuelled by ‘s gold rush.
Local alderman Vincent McCauley later bought it and subdivided the house into flats, but it was turned back into a single residence by Basil Burak after he paid £5,759 for it in 1955.
Mr Burak’s sons sold it in 2015 for $4million to cardiologist Aiden O’Loughlin and his partner Ashleigh Skillecorn, who restored and renovated it.
Despite picking up an imposing home on the beach suburb’s hillside, Ms Moussa and Mr Choker are not going to live there.
Instead, family members will have the run of the Coogee mansion, with the owners preferring to stay 8km away in Elizabeth Bay, where they rent in the glamorous Kincoppal building, whose former residents include the late rocker David Bowie.
Ms Moussa and Mr Choker said ‘I do’ at the stroke of midnight as 2023 became 2024 in front of 180 guests in Sydney.
She wore three different dresses including a red gown to the glitzy event that began at Sydney’s State Theatre, where musicians and performers kept guests entertained as they strolled between hundreds of roses.
Attendees were then taken to a pop-up circus tent which was decorated with even more flowers, crystal chandeliers, candles and decadent food tables, before being treated to a fireworks display to top off the night.
The couple put their years of experience styling and planning events at The Grounds to good use to create a dreamy wedding that the bride said was worth every sleepless night.
Ms Moussa told Daily Mail she ‘loved’ using her expertise to plan her perfect wedding in the exact way and style she wanted.
‘Everything that I would love in to do an event, I was able to do. You feel like you’re on cloud nine, it’s such a special, special day.
‘It was a fun thing to organise, especially because it was our own. It was so sweet, all of our family and friends were just over the moon.
‘I still get messages saying “take me back!” and asking if I could throw a wedding every year.’
The wedding started in the late afternoon on December 31 at the State Theatre, a historical building she had always been in love with.
‘It captures all the right elements of a fairytale you could ever imagine with architecture that is out of this world,’ she said.
‘The first question I asked when I enquired was ‘Can I please change the letters of the marquee sign at the front?’ Then it was a done deal for me.’
Flowers spilled down the foyer stairs while a harpist played dreamy tunes and ribbonists danced around the space as guests filed in and were treated to custom ‘At the Stroke of Midnight’ popcorn boxes to snack on during the show.
Therese walked down the aisle in the first dress of the evening designed by Serbian label Vlora&Kaltrina which she said was inspired by the art-deco glam style of the theatre and a medieval goddess.
Because the couple wanted to be officially married at midnight, they put on a ‘fake ceremony’ on the theatre’s stage in front of an explosion of red roses with Therese and Ramzey’s two best friends as the celebrants and a ring master entertaining and directing the crowd.
‘We needed that element because we were going to shock the crowd by telling them we weren’t getting married just yet.
‘The ring master did the best job with telling a fairytale story. It was pretty magical and funny as well,’ she said.
At the end of the ‘ceremony’ the ring leader informed the guests they were getting on a bus to go to another mystery location while Therese had her first outfit change of the night.
She wore an ‘ultimate Jessica Rabbit gown’ custom designed by Nikita Sernack, who is a friend of her’s.
The ruby-red dress was embellished with sequins and feathers and had matching gloves.
The couple then travelled in a red mustang to the next destination, where guests were already snacking on canapés, to start the party inside a pop-up Spiegeltent which she fought tooth and nail to arrange.
‘It’s an old German circus tent. It’s something that Ramz and I have loved for years.
‘We’ve watched so many cool shows in the Spiegeltents and every time I was like, “I’m obsessed with this space, I’d love to decorate it exactly how my inner creative would want to decorate it”,’ she said.
She spent months looking for a place that could host the tent as most parks in Sydney were booked out for the New Year’s fireworks.
She appealed to more than 50 different venues before given the green light to place it outside the Entertainment Quarter in Moore Park.