110 Wolseley Road, Point Piper. Photo: Toby Johnstone Luxury car importer Neville Crichton has pulled off the ultimate trophy home deal swapping his recently sold $60.8 million Point Piper mansion to buy a “mini-me” version up the road for almost half the price.
Crichton’s downsizer digs is on the same Point Piper water frontage, where sources say he has paid about $33 million for the distinctive glass-fronted residence of Karyn Zamel, wife of mining engineer Gary Zamel.
Crichton’s new home was previously owned by media mogul Lachlan Murdoch and his wife Sarah until they sold it to Zamel for $20.6 million in 2005.
Neville Crichton and his fiancee, Nadi Hasandedic. Photo: Supplied
The Zamels listed it in 2014 for $37 million based on the then sale of accused murderer Ron Medich’s house sale a few doors away, and relisted it last year with Bill Malouf, of LJ Hooker Double Bay.
Despite no comment from Malouf independent sources put the sale at between $30 million and $35 million. A second source said Crichton picked up his “mini-me” downsizer digs for closer to $33 million.
The purchase coincides with a caveat revealing the buyer of Crichton’s long-held home is a little known multi-millionaire from China, Yingping Cao.
The Point Piper trophy home Neville Crichton sold for $60.8 million. Photo: Brendan Esposito
Cao, whose purchase was approved by the Foreign Investment Review Board, has no registered property records or corporate dealings in her name in Australia.
Details about the off-market sale have been shrouded in secrecy, but are widely tipped to have been negotiated by Brad Pillinger, of Pillingers, and Bart Doff, of Laing+ Simmons Double Bay, neither of whom would comment for this story.
Despite both properties being three-level residences on the waterfront and each with a private jetty, Crichton will be moving into a much smaller three-bedroom home set on 990 square metres with a harbourfront pool.
His new ‘mini me’ house at 110 Wolseley Road, Point Piper. Photo: Supplied
His former home, Portofino, sits on a double block of 1500 square metres and has a vast floorplan of seven bedrooms, including two guest suites on either side of the gym and a two-bedroom “maid’s quarters” above the garaging.
Crichton and his fiancee Nadi Hasandedic were reported house hunting for high-end listings last year, and made an offer of more than $20 million for the Finger Wharf apartment of Russell Crowe late last year.
Wolseley Road is often billed as Australia’s most exclusive address. There are 12 houses that line the waterfront between Crichton’s old and new addresses, including the homes of Frank Lowy and car wash king Anthony Sahade. Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull and Seven’s commercial director Bruce McWilliam live on nearby Wunulla Road.
Crichton’s sale at $60.8 million makes it the third highest house sale in Australia, topped by the sale of the nearby mansion Altona late last year for $61.8 million and the all-time high of $70 million set in 2015 when James and Erica Packer’s Vaucluse mansion La Mer went to Australian-Chinese businessman Chau Chak Wing.