The NZ-owned provider is rumoured to have paid between $30M and $40M for the Moondah Estate at Mt Eliza, outbidding tenders from other major aged care operators.

The waterfront Mornington Peninsula property is just 45 minutes from the CBD and was previously used as a campus for the Melbourne Business School.

Ryman plans to re-develop the site, which includes a 42-room mansion, a 95-bed student accommodation, vineyard and private access to a 190m beach, into a retirement village with independent living apartments and aged care plus specialist dementia care.

It will be their fourth site in Australia since opening their first village in Melbourne in 2014, and they intend to keep expanding in Victoria – which they point out has a bigger population than NZ (4.5M versus 6M).

With such a prestige development site, the question is what standard of co-located village will they build?