Sussan boss Naomi Milgrom spends $6.2 million to buy her Byron Bay neighbour: Title Tattle
Sussan fashion chain executive chairwoman Naomi Milgrom, usually dubbed Victoria's richest woman but who maintains a base on the riverfront in Sydney's Woolwich, has expanded her Byron Bay holdings. She's spent $6.2 million to buy the 1200-square-metre property adjacent to her $4.75 million acquisition in 2007. It takes her NSW far north coast hillside holding to 2130 square metres.
Milgrom's 2007 purchase was from the Asciano boss Mark Rowsthorn, who had bought the property in 2002 for $2.825 million from John Weller, the former Melbourne solicitor who made international news when he won the first case of child maintenance for a man in the 1970s.
Rowsthorn upgraded to Marine Parade, Wategos, where he paid $6.2 million in late 2006 buying from Peter Gifford, the former Midnight Oil bass player who runs the microscopic bikinis website Wicked Weasel.
Milgrom's musical tastes are slightly more refined, as she's one of the investors, alongside fashionista Peter Weiss and Transfield managing director Guido Belgiorno-Nettis, who're spearheading a new investment vehicle seeking to buy a $1.79 million Stradivarius violin.
It was Vaucluse's John and Jo McNiven who have apparently secured about $22 million from Chinese buyers for their hillside mansion. Title Tattle gleans it has been bought by Yang Yang, who currently gives an address as a 47th-floor rental in the multi-award-winning Lumiere Apartment complex on Bathurst Street. The McNivens, who bought a vast terrace in Potts Point last year, have regularly hired out their trophy home as the backdrop for Sydney social promotional events.
Attendees still fondly remember the 2005 evening when the Tuscan villa was the venue of a Armani perfume launch. The McNivens went out to dinner and missed the party, coming home as the last of the guests were teetering down the driveway clutching their free bottles of perfume.
The major player in securing houses for events or film crews in Sydney is Anthony Morano, who was spotted last month checking out a double apartment in the landmark Aaron Bolot-designed 1951 Wylde Street, Potts Point apartment block. It fetched $1.36 million last weekend through BresicWhitney agent Anthony Ross, but not to Morano.
Celebrity gardener Brendan Moar – who’s soon to host The Renovators on Channel Ten – secured $1,036,000 for his recently sold Newtown terrace (pictured above) in Sydney’s inner west. It sold pre-auction at an undisclosed price, with viewers at the final open for inspection being told they needed to pay $1 million to secure the 1890s terrace. A check on the official records reveal its $1,036,000 price tag. It fetched well above Moar’s initial $900,000-plus hopes through Ray White Surry Hills agents Timothy Gorring and Shaun Stoker. It was 2004 when the landscape architect paid $686,000 with Cathy Wadling, with the terrace very much reflecting Moar's creative flair with airy interiors and a newly landscaped wraparound courtyard. It had three bedrooms plus a study.
The one-time Gordon residence of the renowned Sydney artist Benjamin Minns, who during the 1920s was the head of the Watercolours Society of NSW, has been sold. Its price has been withheld, but the expectations were about $3 million. It last sold at $2.25 million in 2006 when bought by the Owler family. It has five bedrooms, a study and three bathrooms. The 1920s front façade remains the same, but behind its been altered and extended extensively, according to its LJ Hooker Wahroonga selling agents Robert Ward and Michael Walter. It comes with a grand limestone-tiled entrance room and an enormous glass enclosed sunroom, which overlooks the gardens and dramatic bushland valley vistas.
During the Minns' ownership the home on 3,338 square metres was a favourite sanctuary for many in the painting fraternity. Set on parklike grounds, once featured on Burke's Backyard, it has a series of terraced lawns, stone walls and established gardens with soaring ferns and a tinkling creek at the bottom of the garden. There’s a rustic stone gazebo in which it is reported that Minn's wife often sought refuge to follow her passion of writing.
Soccer champion Mark Viduka has trimmed his property portfolio, recently selling a townhouse in Williamstown (pictured), Melbourne and a Milsons Point, Sydney apartment. The two-bedroom, 160-square-metre Milsons Point apartment, which cost $1.45 million in 2005, sold through Andrew Cocks of First National Real Estate Circular Quay for $2 million. Viduka, who splits his time between Melbourne, England and Croatia, had hoped for $1.5 million plus for the tri-level, four-bedroom townhouse, which has been sold for an undisclosed price through Hocking Stuart Williamstown agent Rashard Risilia. It had been bought for $465,000 in 2004.
Hollywood Hills-based cosmetics king Napoleon Perdis has bought back home in Sydney. Perdis and wife Soula-Marie have spent about $3.7 million for near-new Double Bay house (pictured above). The couple relocated in 2006 to the United States after selling in Drummoyne for $2,775,000. The new Sydney home has a lift from its triple garage in the basement connecting to the two-storey, four-bedroom, three-bathroom house with a swimming pool. Its previous sale was for $3.55 million after its 2009 completion. One of the two other nearly identical neighbouring properties sold last December for $3.785 million through Ashley Bierman of Ray White Double Bay. Perdis apparently liked the fact that it was a good lock-up-and-leave property given his international commitments.
And don't say that Title Tattle told you, but apparently the Paspaley pearl family who bought in Bellevue recently for $9.4 million are listing their sandstone Woollahra cottage through Savills agent Martin Schiller. It was bought for $3.87 million in 2005.
