GRAYA has broken ground on Ivory, a five storey home on the Brisbane River at New Farm. The council paper trail behind the site shows how much has to line up before a block like this gets built on.
Brisbane builder developer GRAYA has broken ground on Ivory, a private home on the Brisbane River at New Farm that the company expects to become the first house in the city valued above $50 million.
The home is being built for Chemist Warehouse managing partner Jeff Wasley and his wife Tanya.
Brisbane City Council’s Development.i records list the couple as the primary applicants on the approval, which was decided on 9 September 2026.
GRAYA spent 11 months designing the house and is building it with its own team. The company describes Ivory as a legacy asset for its owners, a house intended to be held rather than traded.
A record sale came before the build
The site is a 688 square metre lot with direct river frontage, between New Farm Park and the Story Bridge.
GRAYA director Rob Gray and his wife Meghan bought the block in 2022. The plan at the time was to build their own family home there.
The Wasleys bought it off market in October 2025 for a reported $25 million, a record for a Brisbane residential sale at the time.
GRAYA says the final design keeps several elements from those earlier plans for Rob Gray’s own home. Industry estimates cited in the company’s announcement put the finished value between $40 million and $50 million.
What is going into a five storey riverfront house
According to GRAYA, Ivory runs across five levels, from a basement to a rooftop.
The lowest level is set aside for wellness, with a gym, steam room, sauna and therapy rooms.
The ground floor holds a golf simulator and a car gallery the company calls The Showroom, which looks out to the river and the Story Bridge.
Main living sits on the first floor. Wide glazing opens onto a terrace carried on flared, mushroom style columns.
Above that is a master retreat with 10 metres of wardrobes, a private library and a family room. The roof carries a pool and a bar behind glass balustrades, facing the city skyline.
Down at the water there is a resort style pool and a firepit lounge.
The look is built around stacked, curving white terraces in a smooth neutral render. The columns do double duty as structure and as the main visual feature, continuing through the living spaces.
The approval trail at Julius Street runs back to 2020
Council records for the lot show five applications in six years. Read in order, they tell a story most builders on tight urban sites will recognise.
In 2020 a previous owner lodged an application for a dwelling house that was later cancelled. A second dwelling house application by the same owner was approved in May 2022, with council noting flood hazard and heritage considerations.
In November 2024, council approved operational work on the lot for filling or excavation and prescribed tidal work. That is the kind of approval needed before anyone digs below ground beside a tidal river.
An application for a multiple dwelling, the boutique apartment scheme proposed while the Grays owned the site, was refused. The block was sold not long after.
The current approval was lodged in June 2026 and decided in September. It covers a material change of use and building work for a dwelling house, with council also acting as a referral agency.
It was code assessable. That means it was assessed against the codes in Brisbane City Plan 2014 rather than going through public notification.
Why riverfront prestige homes carry extra referrals
The approval lists three referral triggers: amenity and aesthetics, design and siting, and a local heritage place.
What is a design and siting referral?
In Queensland, council becomes a referral agency for a house when the design does not meet certain acceptable solutions in the Queensland Development Code, or the alternative siting provisions in a planning scheme. Brisbane City Council’s technical guideline on building work referrals notes these are commonly known as siting variations.
Instead of the standard setbacks and site cover rules, council assesses the house against the matching performance criteria. A separate amenity and aesthetics referral applies in declared areas, including the Medium density residential zone, where a house does not meet the acceptable outcomes in the relevant codes.
The Julius Street lot sits in the Medium density residential zone, within the New Farm and Teneriffe Hill neighbourhood plan area.
The street itself is part of a heritage precinct of interwar flats. Julius Lodge at number 5 was entered on the Queensland Heritage Register in 1997.
For builders, those referrals sit on top of the usual licensing and compliance obligations that apply to any new home. A five storey house with a basement on a flood affected river edge is a long way from a standard project home, and the approval reflects that.
On a riverfront block, the paperwork starts long before the excavator arrives.
On a riverfront block, the paperwork starts long before the excavator arrives.
Design and construct under one roof
GRAYA was founded by brothers Rob and Andrew Gray and has kept the same structure throughout. It designs, develops and builds its own projects, and Ivory is designed and built entirely in house.
On a house of this complexity, that means the decisions on structure, buildability and finish are made by the same business that has to deliver them. The flared columns, for example, are both the engineering and the architecture.
The company is also working at much larger scale. Earlier this year it lodged The Silo, a 170 residence precinct near James Street. Ivory is a single house, but it is the one GRAYA expects to set a new benchmark for the city.
A high water mark for Brisbane’s prestige build market
The $50 million figure will get the attention. For builders, the more useful story is the sequence behind it.
Five applications. Tidal works and excavation approvals. A refused apartment scheme, a sale, and a house approval that needed three referral triggers before work could start.
At this end of the market, homes are won on design, approvals and buildability as much as on price. Ivory shows what it takes to line all three up on one of the rarest blocks in Brisbane.
We will follow Ivory as it rises out of the riverbank. For more conversations with the builders shaping Australian homes, listen to The Good Builder Podcast.
The Good Builder Take
Records get set by sale prices. Benchmarks get set by builds. Ivory is a Brisbane builder designing and constructing a home at a level the city has not seen before, on a site that took five applications to get right. That is worth paying attention to, whatever end of the market you build in.
Frequently asked questions
GRAYA, the Brisbane builder developer founded by brothers Rob and Andrew Gray, designed the home over 11 months and is building it with its own team. The owners are Jeff and Tanya Wasley, who are listed as the primary applicants on the council approval.
GRAYA expects Ivory to become the first home in Brisbane valued above $50 million once complete. Industry estimates cited in the company’s announcement put the completed value between $40 million and $50 million. The block itself reportedly sold for $25 million in October 2025.
The development application was lodged on 12 June 2026 and approved on 9 September 2026. It was code assessable and covered a material change of use and building work for a dwelling house, with council also acting as a referral agency.
A siting variation is the common name for a design and siting referral. It applies when a house does not meet certain acceptable solutions in the Queensland Development Code or a planning scheme’s alternative siting provisions. Council then assesses the design against the matching performance criteria instead.
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Last updated: 20 October 2026. Approval details current as at this date from Brisbane City Council records.
General Information Only: This article is general information only and does not constitute legal, financial, planning or professional advice. It does not take into account your particular circumstances. Before acting on any information in this article, seek advice from an appropriately qualified professional. The Good Builder makes no representation that the information is complete or current at the time of reading.
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