Point Piper renovation for Shark Tank's Andrew Banks
The Los Angeles-based entrepreneur Andrew Banks and his wife Andrea returned last week to Point Piper.
It was a $21 million non-harbourfront acquisition by the star of Channel Ten's Shark Tank reality series.
The couple have immediately lodged $1.4 million renovation plans telling neighbours their proposed Bokor Architecture alterations are generally restricted to internal changes, although they will be knocking down the quaint 1930s weather vane tower above the garage.
There will be a new zinc roof and they plan to render the red brick home with a white wash.
Banks is leaving no stone unturned in the renovation.
He's called on one of Australia's leading landscapers Paul Bangay to create the gardens, while Thomas Hamel, of the same standing in the designing world, will be handling the interior.
The Bank's are back in Australia’s most expensive neighbourhood, having made headlines in 2010 for the $52 million sale of their waterfront mansion, Villa Veneto to the Penn family.
Their recently acquired 1930s-era residence on Wyuna Road was sold by South African medical device entrepreneur Dr Charalambos Revelas and his wife Mary who are the $15.75 million buyers of Edgecliff trophy home, Carmel.
Carmel was built in the 1930s for stockbroker, Stanley Utz. Banks, who started his career as an actor in England at The Old Tote Theatre Company, made his fortune in the recruitment industry, co-founding Morgan & Banks in 1985 with Geoff Morgan.
His appearances on the Channel Ten show - where he returns later this year - saw him offer to invest in the iCapsulate coffee company, with a show record $2.5 million, which would have given him 22.5% of the company. But it failed to proceed after Bank did due diligence.
Following the sale of his Point Piper trophy home in 2010, the couple moved to Los Angeles, paying $US9 million for a Beverly Hills mansion, quite near to where their children, Nick and Sophia had made their homes having married Americans.
After a major renovation, the couple recently sold in Beverly Hills for US$15,995,000.
One of his mottos is "I don’t think we should tip-toe through life towards death".
This article was first published in the Saturday Daily Telegraph.
