Domain goes in search of the grandest homes on offer around the country.
You have recently sold a start-up business you co-founded in 2006 for $855 million. Do you, a: sell up your Maroubra digs to trade up to a $20 million mansion on the harbour front? Or b: travel the Indian sub-continent in search of the meaning of life?
Menulog co-founder Dan Katz and his wife Nicole have shocked no-one by going with the harbour-front option.
Details of the couple’s purchase were not hard to confirm once Katz was seen inspecting the Vaucluse waterfront home of finance entrepreneur Clive Isenberg in the company of buyer’s agent Simon Cohen.
Dan Katz’s new waterfront home.
At the time, selling agent Bill Malouf, of LJ Hooker Double Bay, would say only that it went to a local buyer, but Katz has since followed up the purchase by listing the family’s Maroubra home.
Expect to pay $3.5 million for their ‘Bra home at the March 19 auction through Jason Black, of Black Lifestyle.
The five-bedroom home with a swimming pool last traded in 2008 for $2.57 million when sold by the Katehos family. Set on 550 square metres, it scored a deluge of interested parties at last weekend’s first open inspection, with most of the interest coming from buyers up-sizing from Bondi and Bronte.
Dan Katz’s $3.5 million Marouba home is on the market.
Eastern suburbs winners
Cynthia Cheung, of the wealthy publican family who owns the Coogee Bay Hotel, has done a secret deal on her Point Piper home in the Kilmory estate.
About $6.5 million was the asking price on the ground-floor spread in the historic estate through McGrath’s Richard Shalhoub, according to a well-placed source. Shalhoub, however, has declined to comment.
Records show Cheung is one of the original buyers into the converted mansion, paying $5.6 million in 2006.
The Darling Point property Casa Ombu,
Also doing well from the east’s current shortage of high-end stock is US-based mining entrepreneur Michael O’Keeffe , who sold his Darling Point property, Casa Ombu, for close to $5.5 million.
Developed as part of the Babworth estate by jailed fraudster Nati Stoliar, it last traded for $4.6 million in 2006. Alas, LJ Hooker Double Bay’s Bill Malouf refused to comment on the sale.
Meanwhile, Moelis managing director Andrew Martin, and his wife Kate secured about $7.5 million for their Darling Point home last weekend after it had been passed in at $7,265,000 earlier in the day.
Andrew Martin, and his wife Kate secured about $7.5 million for their Darling Point home.
McGrath’s Ben Collier wouldn’t say what the couple’s plans were, but Title Deeds has heard talk the Martins are bound for Paddo, where they were the $10.5 million buyers of the converted furniture emporium sold by billionaire techie Mike Cannon-Brookes last October.
Meanwhile, tech entrepreneur Ron Creevey did well from his short stint at Darling Point, selling up the road from the Martins for about $10 million, well above the $8.85 million he’d paid two years earlier.
Michael Dunn, of Richardson & Wrench Double Bay, declined to reveal the sale price but confirmed it sold ahead of its March 9 deadline.
Andrew Martin’s Darling Point home.
Finally, choreographer Graeme Murphy and his wife, collaborator Janet Vernon didn’t dally selling their Bundeena weekender. Three weeks after it was listed by Phillips Pantzer Donnelley’s Debbie Donnelley, it has sold for $1.35 million.
This is the eco-designed waterfront property designed by Murphy’s long-time friend and the property’s co-owner Ardea Oosthuizen after they purchased the site for $107,000 in 1987.
Woollahra stocktake
Title Deeds wouldn’t expect the Woollahra home of hotelier Lloyd Berger and his wife Simone sit around on the market long.
Graeme Murphy’s Bundeena weekender.
Although it has only recently renovated throughout, with new floors, finishes and a lavish landscaping job, the couple have moved back to London, prompting the sale of the almost 1300 square metres by LJ Hooker Double Bay’s Bill Malouf.
It last traded in 2014 for $6.5 million when sold by Sigma Funds director Heath Behncke and Deutsche Bank stockbroker Emily Behncke. Expect to pay well in excess of the $7.45 million that corporate adviser Geoff Hilton scored last year for his nearby home on less than half the land.
Spencer crosses the ditch
Heiress Mertsi Louise Spencer, daughter of the late Kiwi magnate John Spencer, is to be welcomed to the Vaucluse ‘hood (with happy birthday wishes thrown in for Sunday). The wealthy bed linen distributor and co-director of the family’s Man O’ War Vineyard is revealed as the $10,575,000 buyer of the Canadian government’s landmark property “Kainga”.
Lloyd Berger’s Woollahra home.
A prominent New Zealand businessman, John Spencer, who died last month aged 81 in London, was the country’s richest person in the 1980s.
The Elizabeth Bay apartment Spencer bought in 1976 for $79,000 is now the registered Sydney base of Mertsi. It was bought when her father was still chairman and chief of the family’s Caxton Paper Mills company.
The Canadian Government sold off the consul-general residence with its heritage-listed light beacon after 41 years as part of a wider sell-off of its official residences around the world. It was sold by Elliott Placks and Jeannine Yates of Ray White Double Bay.
The Canadian government’s landmark property “Kainga”.
To the manor born
Morning radio announcer Mark Strachan, OAM, known to his Port Macquarie listeners as “Strawny”, and his wife Deb are selling their heritage-listed Balmain landmark, The Manor House, for $5 million.
Set in the heart of Balmain, the 1345 square metres was purchased by colonial architect Edmund Blacket in 1860 and he built the residence circa 1870, leaving it to his daughters when he died in 1881.
It was best known among the “it” crowd of the 1980s as The Manor House Restaurant before it was sold off in 1996, and last traded in 2013 for $3,735,000. Chris Calvert, of LJ Hooker Balmain, is taking the commercial-zoned holding to auction on April 2.
Manor House at Balmain.
Fashion forward
Author Amanda Tabberer, daughter of fashion doyenne Maggie Tabberer, has put her Woollahra terrace up a March 16 auction.
This is the two-bedroom worker’s cottage Tabberer bought sight unseen in 1999 for $405,000 when she was based in Positano.
The author of My Amalfi Coast has listed it with Ray White Unlimited’s Melanie Lahoud for $1.3 million.
Amanda Tabberer home at Woollahra.
Poolside penthouse
Yachtie and lawyer Craig Malouf has put his Double Bay penthouse up for a March 22 auction.
Malouf, who is co-owner of the recently renovated Royal Oak Hotel with his sons Justin, Jamie and Ed, paid $3.5 million in 2009 for the then new build on Carlotta Road.
Expect to pay $3.7 million for the whole-floor spread with a pool through Mark Daley, of Bradfield Cleary.
Craig Malouf’s Double Bay penthouse.
Killara’s 1930s revisited
In Killara, the grand art deco residence of former board member of CBD Energy (now BlueNRGY) James Anderson and his wife Jennifer, who until last September was Ku-Ring-Gai mayor, is up for grabs.
The heritage-listed property has been home to the Andersons for almost 30 years, having last traded in 1987 for $740,000 when sold by historian Dr Maurine Goldston-Morris, OAM.
Anderson, a former Ernst & Young adviser in London and the US, was on the board of Gerry McGowan’s CBD Energy until 2012.
The grand art deco residence of former board member of CBD Energy (now BlueNRGY) James Anderson and his wife Jennifer. Photo: Supplied
Designed in the 1930s by architect John Aubrey Kerr, it sits on 2200 square metres with a pool, tennis court, billiard room and triple garage. McGrath’s Philip Waller is taking it to March 19 auction for $5 million and $5.5 million.