Point Piper prestige: He Said/She Said looks at what's still on offer
The Simon family sold their vast Point Piper harbourfront trophy home mid-week for just shy of $30 million, some eight years after the initial listing.
It once had $60 million price hopes, reduced to $42 million by 2011, and then $38 million by mid-2013 (the home is pictured below).
There are still plenty of other prestige Point Piper offerings that languish unwanted by buyers at current pricing, and many others not officially listed publicly on websites.
It is possible the sale of 130 Wolseley Road will now encourage a sensible price revision among the remaining ambitious vendors.
Our property contrarians Jonathan Chancellor and Margie Blok commented late last year that the bullish sale of Altona in April 2013 actually prompted another sales impasse becoming embedded given all vendors decided their own home was worth more in the aftermath of the $52 million trophy home.
They now look at the stalest listings and select their own preference.
1) In mid 2012 the Point Piper home of Ron Medich and his wife, Odetta, was listed officially for sale, but it was actually being shown to prospective buyers since 2011.
The harbourfront property had previously been quietly listed for sale, never publicly marketed in print or internet.
It was listed through Bill Malouf at LJ Hooker Double Bay, in conjunction with Ken Jacobs at Christies Great Estates with revised $40 million price expectations down from February 2011's reported $55 million hopes.
The Australian architectural studio Katon Redgen Mathieson completed the Point Piper project in 2009 for Medich, who made a fortune with his brother developing industrial sites in Sydney’s west, and Ron's estranged wife, Odetta. The David Katon-designed house replaced the house bought from the restaurateur Wolfie Pizem in 2003 for $15.1 million.
2) One of Professor Leslie Wilkinson's most prized Point Piper houses remains listed for sale by the retired shirt maker-cum-property developer Charles Scarf and his wife, Maria (pictured below).
The 1959 Wentworth Street property was the second-last of Wilkinson’s house designs. It was listed in March 2012. It last traded when bought from the then low-profile expatriate businessman Richard Wiesener for $8.25 million – which was 1992's highest sale.
The neighbouring property had been bought for $6.5 million for its tennis court in 1989, and it took the estate to 2,717 square metres. The original house reportedly cost $350,000 in the 1970s.
3) In late 2012 the Edwardian-era harbourfront house of John Piven-Large was listed. It had last traded when it was a duplex. The now restored four-bedroom house (pictured below) and one-bedroom self-contained apartment with a 30 metre private tidal beach has been through a change in marketing agents to Jason Boon at Richardson & Wrench Elizabeth Bay and Ben Collier at McGrath by the low-key liquor industry entrepreneur who owns the Centennial Vineyard at Bowral.
4) The house on the slither of land from the subdivided Paradis sur Mer estate is back for sale.
The 260-square-metre parcel of land - the second smallest vacant block among Sydney Harbour's 2,400 waterfront sites - is about eight metres wide and about 34 metres deep.
It was last sold by the speculative property developers Gerald and Monica Symonds for $1.44 million in 1994 and bought by the neighbours who owned the hi-tech Bang & Olufsen house, anxious that no further building take place on the site.
They built the narrow house that is currently up for sale through Sotheby's International agent James McCowan (pictured below). It's listed with $15 million hopes. It was initially listed in 2010 with $13 million plus hopes by the Taechaubol family.
5) Not officially marketed at the moment, but on and off over the years, there's possibly a chance to snare the home of the headhunter Julia Ross, Villa del Mare (pictured below).
The Wolseley Road offering was firstly discreetly put on the market in 2011. The trophy residence had $40 million-plus hopes through Ken Jacobs of Christie's Great Estates and LJ Hooker Double Bay's Bill Malouf.
The limestone palazzo sits on a 1,508-square-metre block. The house was built in the late 1990s by the developer Nati Stoliar. It’s almost certain to sell to Chinese buyers on any relisting, so as sun doesn't need the marketing to the locals.
HE SAID:
Forget Wolseley Road, Wolseley Crescent and Wunulla Road. I adore the hillside Professor Leslie Wilkinson-designed Mediterranean home with its tennis court on Wewtworth Street. Yes it is inland, but so very private.
Indeed actor Adrian Brody celebrated the 2014 New Year's Eve celebrations in absolute privacy at the house when he was in Sydney filming Backtrack, a psychological thriller.
The house and garden are charming and calming. No banana chairs here!
SHE SAID:
For me, the Wunulla Road home of low-key liquor industry entrepreneur John Piven-Large is a ‘lay down misère’ given its magnificent waterfront position at the cul-de-sac end of this prestigious street.
While Jonathan fancies swanning around at the non-waterfront Scarf residence (I can see him hosting tennis parties and serving Pimms on the lawn), I’d prefer to be down the hill and propped up on a banana chair by the harbour.
Built in 1913, the Piven-Large house is in good company, being two doors north of Altona, the suburb’s best-known trophy residence which sold for $52 million last year.
Also two doors away is Routala, the waterfront home of hedge fund director Gordon Fell and his wife, Pip, which sold in 2007 for $28.7 million setting a record price at that time. The Fell's are still there despite cheeky reports suggesting it was for sale last June.
Other near neighbours include Herewai, a landmark Spanish Mission stucco building, one of the Rydge family’s vast compound of properties on this exclusive tip of Point Piper.
In 1960, when Herewai was a duplex, Sir Norman Rydge, bought one apartment from a grazier, Anthony Hordern the younger, for £30,250. Eight years later, he purchased the other apartment for $105,000. Since, his youngest son, Alan, has added an assortment of other properties to the family’s Wunulla Road holding.
The Edwardian-era harbourfront house of John Piven-Large was also duplex when it last traded.
Piven-Large engaged the celebrated architect Espie Dods to restore the building to a four-bedroom house with a self-contained one-bedroom apartment.
Standing on 961 square metre block with a 28.7 metre width to the water and a tidal sandy beach, it is one of only four Wunulla Road homes with unobstructed views of the Harbour Bridge and Opera House.
