John Laws sells Finger wharf investment and boat berth
Veteran radio broadcaster John Laws has sold a longtime property investment in the Woolloomooloo Finger Wharf.
But it is not the two storey trophy apartment held by Laws and his wife Caroline since they made the move from Queen Street, Woollahra.
The redundant investment - an apartment, car space and prized marina berth - was sold off market for $2.9 million.
The investment cost $660,000 off the plan in 1997, with the berth costing $340,000 in 2006.
The apartment has been sold to Sascha Griffin, the entrepreneur who made her name as the Pinklily shoebox queen, and her husband Scott Feneck. They recently pocketed $7 million plus in the sale of their six bedroom, eight bathroom home, once known as Petersham Fire Station, which came with approval for a 13 room boutique hotel.
The finger wharf apartments were completed in early 2000 by the Hunters Hill property developer Lang Walker after the wharf was saved from demolition in the early 1990s.
Built between 1910 and 1914, the wharf, at 401 metres long, is the longest timber-piled wharf in the world.
Laws, who has owned at the wharf since the early days of its apartment conversion, has been a regular at its restaurants.
His initial 258-square-metre patio retreat - which included two car spaces and a berth - cost $3 million in 2000.
Laws expanded his ownership upstairs when he paid $15 million four years later with a purchase from agri-business investor Rodney Price and his wife Loeen.
The 580-square-metre apartment acquisition came with two 90-square-metre balconies and included a 40-metre berth on plus six car spaces.
There are just the nine modern units at the tip of the wharf.
Their record price exceeded the $14.35 million paid in 2003 by actor Russell Crowe for a third-floor apartment at the wharf.
Laws, a legend of Australian radio, offered a distinctive voice which earned him the nickname the Golden Tonsils.
Despite retiring in 2007, he returned to radio in 2011, as the host of a morning program on 2SM and the Super Radio Network.
This article first appeared in The Sunday Telegraph
