Allam home builders buy Glebe's Lyndhurst
The Allam home building family has emerged as the mystery buyer of the 1833 Georgian Regency villa, Lyndhurst.
Regarded as one of the inner Sydney’s most historically significant homes, it sold post-auction mid-year, settling only this week at $7.5 million.
It had previously traded at $3.3 million in 2005 when bought by the stockbroker Tim Eustace and his partner Salvatore Panui.
The family headed by Barney Allam were last on the radar when they paid $4.2 million in 2011 for the 1886 Gothic Revival Bowden - also in Glebe.
Lyndhurst was the home designed by esteemed architect John Verge as a marine villa for the colonial surgeon James Bowman, the husband of the iconic pastoralist John Macarthur's daughter, Mary.
The home was bought by the Department of Main Roads in 1972 and slated for demolition to make way for an expressway, but saved at the last minute due to agitation by the Save Lyndhurst Committee, a Builders Labourers Federation green ban and a change of state government.
Eustace and Panui bought another historic inner city landmark, Iona, for around $16 million from entertainment industry couple Baz Luhrmann and Catherine Martin.
They outsmarted the art collector John Schaeffer who was furious at missing out on Iona when it was offered through Michael Pallier at Sothebys.
Schaeffer has instead bought a Bondi Beach sub-penthouse for $7 million. Eustace and Panui bought another historic inner city landmark, Iona, for around $16 million from entertainment industry couple Baz Luhrmann and Catherine Martin.
Founded in Penrith in 1991, the Allam Property Group has grown to become one of Sydney’s largest residential home builders.
The article first appeared in The Sunday Telegraph.
