Glynt Manor - Demetri's Castle - at Mt Martha onsold by Zampelis restaurateur family
The historic gothic 1914 Mount Martha mansion Glynt Manor, briefly known as Demetri’s Castle during its SBS reality television series, has been sold again.
It was recently onsold by the prominent Zampelis restaurateur family to the Stavretis family at $3.22 million.
The Zampelis family had snapped up the property for $3,399,000 in late 2011.
The latest transaction represents a second loss-making sale for the property which was briefly available for rent during the brief Zampelis ownership.
The earlier 2011 sale represented a $900,000 loss in three years by the Commonwealth Bank in the mortgagee sale.
Glynt Manor hit the headlines when then vendors, hair and make-up artists Demetri and Lila Sideropoulos, sought $6.5 million in 2010.
On its listing the Sideropouloses indicated they were selling to pursue opportunities overseas, saying they didn't get attached to things.
The nine-bedroom, eight-bathroom mansion had been bought by the Greek couple in 2008 for $4.3 million from Michael Puttock and Diana Carr.
They then thoroughly renovated it into a family home and bed-and-breakfast on the SBS documentary Demetri’s Castle, which is currently being replayed on Sunday nights.
Glynt Manor sits on about 8,000 square metres, with views of Port Phillip Bay and the Melbourne lights in the distance. It was designed by Harold Desbrowe Annear as a single-storey farmhouse for the Henty family, descendants of Victoria's first European settlers.
It bears a similarity to another of his designs, Delgany at Portsea. Its later owners included the Buxton family from 1917 to 1983 when the then 31-hectare property featured sweeping lawns, orchards and farmlands that ran right to the edge of the bay.
In 1969 the family subdivided the property but retained the manor and two hectares of beautiful English- and French-inspired gardens.
In 1983 the property was sold to new owners, who restored the grand old manor and ran it as a tourism resort, naming it "Glynt By The Sea". It was again run as a bed-and-breakfast from the mid-1990s by the adventure travel pioneer Bill King.
Mark Callan and William Gilchrist bought the property in 1997 and commissioned Yarraville architect Hugh Basset to undertake some interior redesigns while the home's former gardener, Bob Barker, who started work at Glynt in the late 1920s, returned to restore the gardens.
The duo sold the property in 2000 for $2.35 million.
Property Observer is not aware of the intentions of the new owners, a company directed by Brighton resident, Frances Stavretis.
