The mansion sale that will reshape two Melbourne private schools

11 hours ago 1

Private school giant Carey Baptist Grammar will become one mega campus in Kew after purchasing yet another prized piece of real estate from its neighbour, struggling progressive school Preshil.

A year in the making, the deal will see Carey close its junior campus in Donvale at the end of 2027 with all primary students to be based in Kew at the newly acquired Blackhall property.

Carey Grammar principal Jonathan Walter said the deal would set Carey up for the future.

“[This] will be setting our school up for a future where every student has access to the same programs, facilities and opportunities,” Carey principal Jonathan Walter said.

A heritage-listed Italianate mansion, Blackhall was built as a private home in 1890 before being sold to the Salvation Army in 1915. Preshil purchased Blackhall in 1978 and currently uses the building – which adjoins Carey – for classrooms and offices.

Walter said the double-storey Victorian mansion would still be used for classrooms but that the school would also build a centre for year 5 and 6 students and a new sports and wellbeing facility with underground car park on the 7300 square-metre site.

Enrolments at the co-educational school, which next year will charge $42,660 for VCE students, have been climbing steadily and in 2024 topped 2500 students. Walter said the purchase was not about increasing student numbers but consolidating campuses and resources.

Preshil has sold the Blackhall property to Carey Grammar after a year of negotiations.

The deal means the school will no longer have to run buses between the junior campus in Donvale and its sports fields in Bulleen for physical education classes.

Founded in 1923, Carey has run a junior school in Donvale since 1989. There are currently 270 students at the campus, which will be sold.

“I’m aware that for some Donvale families, they will be disappointed not to have their local school,” Walter said.

“But having said that, almost everyone who enrols at Donvale finishes their journey at Kew.”

According to its latest publicly available financial report, Carey had a $3.34 million surplus in 2023.

A minnow in the independent school sector, Preshil’s sale of Blackhall will leave it with a single campus in Kew, known as Arlington, which is currently used as its junior campus.

Principal Aaron Mackinnon acknowledged the Blackhall sale would be upsetting for some in the school community.

“There’s a natural sadness there because there is a loss of something,” he said. “It is a big repositioning as a school.”

But he said the sale would allow Preshil to make changes that would otherwise have been impossible.

From 2027, year 7 and 8 students will join their primary school peers at Arlington.

“It will let our year 7 and 8s have a childhood for a little longer ... in almost a homestead approach to schooling,” he said.

Plans for a new inner-east campus for year 9 to 12 students will be finalised next year, but Mackinnon said he wanted a site on which the school could build studio spaces for STEM, art, drama and music as well as shared spaces to foster community.

Preshil’s enrolments slid from 256 in 2019 to just 205 students in 2024, rising to 223 this year.

Arlington will become Preshil’s only campus.

The school is still operating in the red and recorded a $2.1 million deficit last year, when it sold its Kalimna campus to Carey for $16 million.

It now rents Kalimna from Carey for $66,667 a month under an agreement that expires at the end of 2026. However, Mackinnon stressed the Blackhall sale was not one forced by strained financial circumstances.

“This is not a crisis sale for us, this is an opportunity sale,” Mackinnon said.

The latest sale will see Carey lease the Blackhall property from Preshil until the end of 2027.

The Kalimna and Blackhall properties will expand Carey’s footprint in Kew by almost 20 per cent.

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