The prestige market was on fire during 2016. Here's the top 10.
Christmas came two days early for former chief justice of the High Court Murray Gleeson and his wife Robyn in the form of a buyer for their heritage Pymble home “Sandon”.
That’s the same Gleeson who despite earning high acclaim throughout his legal career is in some quarters better known as the father-in-law of Hollywood A-lister Eric Bana thanks to the marriage of his daughter Rebecca.
Gleeson bought the Federation mansion on exclusive Telegraph Road for $875,000 in 1984 back when he was wearing silk and president of the NSW Bar Association.
The Pymble home of former chief justice Murray Gleeson sold two days before Christmas.
It was a protracted sales campaign that began in September 2015, but was relisted late last year with Jill Henry, of Stone Real Estate Lindfield, with a guide of $5 million. Henry declined to reveal the sale price.
Character on show
When high-profile Sydney commentator, architect and award-winning author Elizabeth Farrelly listed her long-held Redfern home this week, it’s little surprise Title Deeds and her colleagues were quick to log on and check out the online gallery of images.
And yes, the three-bedroom home in a row of Edwardian gentlemen’s terraces built in 1910 is everything you’d expect of the award-winning author, regular The Sydney Morning Herald columnist and now downsizer.
The Pymble home “Sandon”.
There’s the lush garden oasis at the back that can be glimpsed from the entry, charming original details, such as the wide timber floors and carved newel posts in the staircase, and homely touches throughout that distinguish this as a home with as much character as the owner.
Most of the renovations were undertaken by the previous owners, interior designer Peter Reeve, Jaycen Fletcher and Laurene Dryden before they sold it for $585,000 in 1998, back when there were drug dealers living and working in the lane behind it and Redfern’s reputation was far from being the hipster paradise it is today.
Almost 20 years later Farrelly is now on the look-out for a “grown-up” apartment in Sydney amid dreams of adding a rural property to her portfolio down the track. Meanwhile, expect to pay $2.2 million at the February 11 auction through BresicWhitney’s Michael Kirk and William Phillips.
Elizabeth Farrelly’s Redfern terrace.
Mosman deal fashioned
Settlement on one of Mosman’s biggest sales of last year – the $14 million former residence of securities trader Neale Muston – reveals the buyers are the family behind one of China’s leading fashion brands, Goelia.
The Casey Brown Architects residence sold late last year through McGrath’s Michael Coombs and John Melville, with buyer’s agent Deborah West handling negotiations.
Despite scant details being forthcoming from the agents involved, the paper trail behind the company name is more forthcoming, pinning the purchase on Daisy Dongying He, wife of Goelia president Gordon Qiming Hu.
Elizabeth Farrelly’s Redfern terrace.
The couple are best known in Australia among the locals of South Australia’s Kangaroo Island, where they have development plans for a tourism retreat and have owned their 100-hectare winery and homestead since 2012.
Blanks get to the Point
Former Glencore coal executive-turned-real estate mogul Vaughan Blank and his wife Jacqueline have splashed out in the east’s high-end market again, picking up a Point Piper duplex that was being marketed with a $16 million asking price.
Expect DA-plans for the 666-square-metre site with street access to both Wolseley Road and Wentworth Street. Peter Anderson, of Anderson Estate Agents, listed the duplex with its three-bedroom apartments last year, selling quick smart amid what a source said was strong interest. Anderson declined to reveal the sale price.
Neale Muston sold his Mosman home for $14 million to the family of one of China’s leading fashion brands.
The Blanks also bought Woollahra’s historic Victorian Italianate villa The Hughenden late last year amid redevelopment plans for the Queen Street site, having taken $9.8 million last October for their Bondi Beach penthouse on Notts Avenue from Mayo Hardware director James Mayo.
Done trades up
Oscar Done, son of iconic Sydney artist Ken Done, is trading up his Watsons Bay home, snapping up designer digs on Salisbury Street for $5.8 million.
Done, who with his sister Camilla runs the family’s property development business Cadmium Property Group, has been a Watsons Bay local for more than a decade, having purchased his pretty Pacific Street cottage in 2006 for $2.5 million.
Oscar Done has traded up to this harbourside home in Watsons Bay.
Local talk tipped off Title Deeds to Done’s purchase of late last year, which records show was negotiated through BradfieldCleary’s Georgia Cleary after only 10 days on the market.
Inghams new nest
The Ingham family have bought the Finger Wharf apartment of digital media entrepreneur Mark Dalgleish, set at the exclusive northern end of the development below the homes of Russell Crowe and John Laws.
The three-bedroom spread was listed last year by Ray White Double Bay’s Elliott Placks and Richard Faludi with a $5 million asking price. The purchase is in a company name owned by Susan Ingham, widow of the late chicken and horse racing tycoon Jack Ingham.
The Ingham family have purchased this three-bedroom apartment set at the exclusive northern end of the Finger Wharf.
The Point Piper-based Dalgleish bought the apartment in the Lang Walker development as an investment in 2010 for $4.5 million from Port Macquarie’s former Liberal branch president Ken Dodds.
Frangieh buys in Lane Cove
Sharon Frangieh, wife of convicted cocaine dealer-turned-property developer Joseph Frangieh, has emerged as the bullish $4.25 million buyer in Lane Cove late last year.
Following the sale last year through McGrath’s Brent Courtney, a caveat on title reveals Frangieh’s purchase of the vast 1800-square-metre property with a swimming pool and one of the suburb’s few privately held tennis courts.
Chinese herbal specialist Lily Liu Kang and her husband Thomas Kang have bought this waterfront residence in Bayview.
The Frangiehs sold their Russell Lea home in 2015 for $3.91 million, and nine months later it was resold by Cabramatta GP James Ly for $4.15 million. Frangieh, who heads up Instyle Developments, and his brother, Raymond Frangieh, pleaded guilty to cocaine supply charges in 2003.
Later that year their father, Sayed Frangieh, was shot dead at the front door of the family’s Merrylands home in a drive-by shooting.
Fertile trade
Celebrity Chinese herbal fertility specialist Lily Liu Kang and her husband Thomas scored a buyer for their Vaucluse mansion for Christmas and have already moved on from the east to buy on the northern beaches where they bought the Bayview waterfront residence Semloh for $6.9 million.
The waterfront residence in Bayview.
Records are yet to disclose the sale price of the couple’s Vaucluse home, although it was being shopped around with a guide of $8 million for six months before it sold. Lily Liu is best known for her high-profile clientele, among them actors Claudia Karvan and Naomi Watts, who 18 months after visiting Kang’s Surry Hills clinic gave birth to the first of her two sons.
The Kangs’ beachfront Bayview home was designed by architect Walter Barda in 1998 and came with a boatshed, pontoon, slipway and jetty thanks to the sellers, former Network Ten chief and Seven chairman Ian Holmes and his wife Anne. It last traded in 1994 for $2.35 million when sold by the late hotelier Maurice Morgan, and was on and off the market since 2008 through Noel Nicholson, of Ray White Palm Beach, before it sold.