Miles traveled for love
Anyone who knows much about me and how I became a Romance Coach knows that my husband Drew and I were a long-distance romance—482 miles apart, to be precise. I believed that I would not let location get in the way of finding a perfect mate, and I didn’t. Today’s online daters often balk at distances as slim as a few miles, but here’s the story of a couple who went half way around the world:
From Online Romance to a New Life in Sydney
Jack Atley for The New York Times
In 2006, while Alexander Falber and his wife Romy Samuel were still in New York, the couple bought a 1,722-square-foot apartment in this 1940s era Art Deco building in the Bellevue Hill section of Sydney.
Alexander Falber and Romy Samuel are enthusiastic about their three-bedroom apartment in Bellevue Hill, one of Sydney’s most prestigious suburbs.
“Where else in the world can you be equidistant to the beach and the city?” Mr. Falber said. “It’s the best location for making the most of the city.”
The couple came to Sydney in 2006. They met a couple of years before through Jdate.com, a Jewish online dating site. It was a romance that could only have been had through the Internet, because Mr. Falber was in Manhattan, studying for his doctorate in chemistry, while Ms. Samuel was in Melbourne, Australia. But, “His profile said, ‘Willing to relocate,’ ” she noted with a cheeky grin.
After a quick courtship they married, spent a couple of years working in New York and then decided to move to Sydney, where Mr. Falber, 32, a native of Monroe, Conn., is using his chemistry degree and entrepreneurial spirit on solar energy projects. Ms. Samuel, also 32, imports luxury goods.
The couple used realestate.com.au to find their apartment, which is in a 1940s-era brick structure of Art Deco design, a favorite style in Australia during that period. The 12-unit building stands at the end of a long driveway, insulating it from the noise of nearby traffic, and on a hillside, so the couple’s apartment has a broad view of Sydney Harbor even though it is on the first floor.
“We bought the apartment without even seeing it,” the couple said in unison. They were still in New York when they found the listing, so Ms. Samuel’s cousin, a managing partner at a Sydney law firm, went to the auction on their behalf. (Most properties in Australia are sold at auction.)
“I was on the phone listening to the auction while Paul was bidding — it was very exciting,” Ms. Samuel recalled. “The next thing I knew, I heard a hammer go down, clapping and Paul shouted, ‘Mazel-tov, you’re now residents of Sydney!’ ”
They paid 850,000 Australian dollars (about $666,670 at the time) for the 160-square-meter (1,722-square-foot) apartment. A real estate agent told Ms. Samuel recently that it was worth 1.2 million Australian dollars ($941,200); a similar apartment in the building recently sold for 1.15 million Australian dollars.
“The property market in Sydney remains quite steady, with a lack of supply holding up prices,” said Elliot Placks, a real estate agent at the Ray White Double Bay Group. “Also, the Australian government’s initiative with the first-home buyer’s grant, which is between 14,000 dollars and 21,000 dollars, is fueling demand.” (That works out to around $12,000 to $17,400.)
He also noted that interest rates in Australia are at 20-year lows.
But the global economic downturn has affected the top end of the market, Mr. Placks said, resulting in price declines of 20 to 30 percent.
The apartment’s living room has a gas fireplace, framed in cherry wood, but the couple turns it on only about one month a year. The parquet floor has a herringbone pattern, while the walls, which are double brick and painted white, are decorated with a lot of memorabilia from their days in New York, including photographs of their first apartment’s front door, Ms. Samuel looking through binoculars at the Top of the Rock Observation Deck at Rockefeller Center and the Brooklyn Bridge.
Just off the living room is the dining area, where there is a table that seats eight because Ms. Samuel likes preparing traditional Jewish meals.
They plan to renovate the kitchen in the future, but for now, its fittings date from the original construction. But it does lead to the balcony and a barbeque for outdoor grilling. Also, the couple’s year-old cat, named Lionel Richie, likes to use the outdoor space to stalk the geckos that bask there in the sun.
One of the apartment’s three bedrooms has been converted into a study, with two glass desks facing each other for their laptops and some shelving for their books lining the walls.
The apartment has two bathrooms, a garage for their car and scooter and a separate storage area.
Mr. Falber and Ms. Samuel recently celebrated their fifth wedding anniversary. Both said they couldn’t be happier living in Sydney. They have been bowled over by the clean ocean air, the clear skies and beautiful beaches, they said.
Ms. Samuel, who was raised in Melbourne, said, “It feels like home, sounds like home, but has the challenge of living in an unfamiliar city.”
