Annette Sharp: James Symond to build Sydney mansion to rival uncle ‘Aussie’ John’s

There’s a new Symond in the eastern suburbs neighbourhood — and he’s got designs on a home almost as grand as his Uncle ‘Aussie’ John Symond’s palatial mansion.

Point Piper has Aussie John Symond and his enormous waterfront palace and now Bellevue Hill is set to get a taste of what Aussie Home Loans has done for the company’s rags-to-riches founding family.

James Symond, Aussie’s former CEO and Aussie John’s nephew, is preparing to break ground in one of Sydney’s most exclusive neighbourhoods after the multi-millionaire lodged plans to build a Mediterranean-inspired three-level mansion in one of Bellevue Hill’s most desirable streets.

James Symond has grand plans for a new home. Picture: Britta Campion

Symond has retained the services of a top architecture firm to design his dream home, a property that will occupy two residential blocks and is expected to offer some harbour views — though none as expansive as the 270-degree vistas observed at his uncle’s four-storey harbour-front edifice, the value of which, pre-latest property boom, was put at $100 million.

James, 49, who last week donated $1 million to St Vincent’s Hospital, is certainly a long way from Campbelltown, where the one-time real estate agent cut his teeth as a mortgage broker after his uncle, then a battler with big dreams who’s now a rich-lister worth an estimated $800 million, gave him his start three decades ago.

Symond and his wife of two years Amelia — formerly actor Amelia Kaldor who played a nurse in Matilda Brown’s 2015 TV miniseries Let’s Talk About and was for 12 years a hostess for Justin Hemmes’ Merivale group before meeting and marrying Symond — have commissioned Woollahra architect Robert Mills to create their glamorous home.

The Mediterranean-inspired three-level mansion will sit in one of Bellevue Hill’s most desirable streets.

The development application estimates the build, on a double block Symond acquired last year for $13 million that was once part of Kerry Packer’s vast Bellevue Hill compound, will cost $9.5 million, although considering the lavish fit-out it’s expected the final price tag on the
L-shaped pile will stretch beyond.

This column’s first glimpse of the architect’s schematics reveal the mini-mansion will have five bedrooms, five bathrooms (plus three more downstairs), a media room, treatment room and two outdoor terraces on the top floor.

The middle level features two vast loungerooms, two dining rooms, a library, a bar, kitchen, butler’s kitchen, powder room and laundry, all surrounding a large glass-ceilinged outdoor terrace overlooking a large pool and tropical landscaped garden for almost two-year-old daughter Stella to romp in.

James Symond and wife Amelia’s new home will have 1500sqm of floor space.

Guests enter the home via the basement level which features an entrance foyer, cloak room, powder room, mud room, huge office, gymnasium, sauna, four-car garage with turntable — a red Ferrari appearing in the architect’s mood board specs possibly suggesting one of these might be on Symond’s wish list.

Also on this level is a three-room nurse’s quarters with private courtyard. This is presumably for a live-in nurse to attend Symond, who in 2017 was diagnosed with multiple myeloma leading to a bone marrow transfusion and stem cell transplant.

The son of Aussie John’s older brother Michael, a meat exporter who lent his younger brother
$10,000 to start Aussie in 1992, also suffers from kidney disease requiring daily dialysis.

An inspection last week confirmed the old home on the site has been demolished.

Uncle ‘Aussie’ John Symond in New York. Picture: Darren Ornitz

Woollahra Council has placed some strict conditions on the build, in the interest of preserving some large trees on the site, including an immense and ancient Moreton Bay fig.

Following some recent modifications, Symond, who resigned this year from his post
as CEO of Aussie following the sale of the business to the Commonwealth Bank and is now on “gardening leave”, is yet to lodge his construction certificate.

Though dwarfed by his uncle’s 2300sqm home on its 2700sqm Point Piper block, Symond’s new mini-mansion, with 1500sqm of floor space on a 1400sqm block, promises to be one of Bellevue Hill’s finest.

Last year Symond told a Sydney business paper: “I don’t know how long I’m here for. Five years? Twenty-five years? Certainly not 50 unless there’s a cure for multiple myeloma.”

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