The Sell: Hermes boss Karin Upton Baker spends $2.285m on new apartment
Following her split from husband Gary Baker last year, Hermes Australia managing director Karin Upton Baker has spent $2.285m on a stylish new pad.
NSW
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The stylish long-time boss of Hermes Australia, Karin Upton Baker, has made the move to Darlinghurst after years in a CBD bolthole.
Upton Baker has spent $2.285 million on a stylish apartment in the sought-after Dominion conversion on Forbes St.
The sandstone manor, dating back to the 1860s and previously the St Vincent’s Hospital Caritas Centre, was converted to a gated boutique block of six by Cbus in 2013.
Upton Baker has secured one of the top-floor apartments, buying it a few days out from its scheduled recent auction through BresicWhitney Darlinghurst agents Guido Scatizzi and Nick Gill.
They had a $1.95 million guide for the apartment being sold by the Monaco-born ad man Hadrien Bourely, who had been in Australia since 2005 and was appointed honorary consul of Monaco in Sydney in 2016, taking over from Lady Mary Fairfax.
Last traded for $1.7 million in 2015, the apartment has two bedrooms, the master with ensuite, restored framed windows on three sides, and high ceilings, panelled walls and timber floors. The open-plan living space meets a full-width balcony.
Upton Baker has headed the Hermes operations in Australia for two decades with stellar results.
The French luxury goods company secured a $40 million annual profit in 2020, up on $38 million in 2019 and $29 million in 2018, its most recently lodged financial results signed off by Upton Baker earlier this month.
Revenue soared over the past year to $207 million, notwithstanding the pandemic, up from $175 million in 2019 and $135 million in 2018.
They are now selling from Sydney’s Trust Building on King St, which cost the company $105 million along with $20 million in renovations. The former premises are being leased by the Queen’s Club to Fendi.
The indefatigable Upton Baker, who’d previously been viewed as the magazine editor from Central Casting, separated from her property developer husband Gary Baker last year after a roller-coaster 37 years.
The split became apparent after Baker recouped around $200,000 at auction from 12 of Upton Baker’s handbags.
In their heyday the Bakers hosted glamorous parties at their non-waterfront, mansard-roofed Elizabeth Bay penthouse, which came with rooftop Roman-style bathhouse and fleet parking facilities.
The cowboy-coutured property developer had burst onto the scene in the late 1980s, aptly directing Dynasty Pty Ltd, then establishing entities called Dredge & Barge, Pile & Bucket and Mine & Quarry.
SINGER DEAN LEWIS MOVES IN TO MOSMAN
Popular singer-songwriter Dean Lewis has bought his first home in Mosman. He has spent around $2.5 million on a nondescript townhouse in his native suburb.
The 33-year-old former sound engineer, whose full name is Dean Lewis Loaney, recently secured the freshly renovated 1960s townhouse, which has since appeared in his social media postings.
Loaney grew up in Mosman, where the family home cost $520,000 in 1994. It was sold for $1.95 million in 2013, when his parents Grant and Ann downsized from their freestanding 1920s home to an apartment in the municipality.
Grant’s parents also lived in Mosman, so Loaney is a third-generation Mosman resident.
The Be Alright hitmaker has long been referred to as “Mosman’s favourite son”, and last October he was reported to be making his highly anticipated second album in Mosman, having leased a heritage Balmoral Beach mansion for the task.
So no surprise that he’s now taken the next step to purchase in Mosman.
Last month he put Balmoral Beach and Middle Harbour on the world stage when it was used as backdrop scenery for his performance on Ellen DeGeneres’s show. Lewis sang Falling Up, which since its March release has had over 10 million streams globally.
With Oasis inspiring his career, Loaney has been on the music scene since 2016 when his first single Waves made it to 12 on the ARIA charts.
His big single was Be Alright in 2018.
Loaney joins a swath of musicians who’ve bought in recent times. including Tones & I at Byron and Troye Sivan in Carlton.
And Wolfmother’s Andrew Stockdale has bought his second property in the Byron district.
WINNING WAREHOUSE BACK ON MARKET
An Annandale industrial warehouse conversion, best known as the studio, then home, of the late artist Fred Cress, is back on the market.
And the 1910 space is looking more polished than ever.
It last sold in 2018 when Fred’s son, The Block television show producer Julian Cress, moved to Melbourne.
Cress had inherited the Johnston Lane brass factory, which was also a bus depot and billiard table factory, before undertaking the initial renovation which won a 2015 Master Builders Association excellence award.
Now restyled, the space has been listed by Qantas Group executive Andrew Parker, who is also chair of the Australia Day Council NSW, and confidante of NSW Premier, Gladys Berejiklian.
Ray White Taylor and Partners agents Walter Burfitt-Williams and Brody O’Brien have a $5.5 million guide for its June 10 auction.
With soaring 7.5m ceilings, the two-floor warehouse on a 305sqm holding has 463sqm internal space, polished concrete floors and exposed brick walls, plus 44 sqm external space. “Undoubtedly it’s one of Sydney’s finest residential warehouses,” Burfitt-Williams says.
Parker and his partner, who runs homewares business Cactacea from the warehouse, have been spending more time in the Southern Highlands, having spent $2.7 million on the Burradoo trophy home Catalina in 2019.
CONSTRUCTIVE MOVE FOR KYLY
Interior designer Kyly Clarke might not yet show up as owning a new trophy home, but she does own a property investment and is overseeing a burgeoning construction company.
Her nifty first investment was bought last year after her separation announcement from her cricketer husband Michael Clarke, whose matrimonial home sold recently for $12 million.
Her $480,000 acquisition was by her newly-created entity, Sparkles Property Investments.
It is at Berkeley on the outskirts of Wollongong, and was marketed as a “classic three-bedroom home on a desirable 567sqm block in this ever-popular neighbourhood lakeside suburb”. It has been rented out at $420 a week.
Kyly’s passion for renovation was obvious when she took on a judging role on House Rules High Stakes, having previously produced her own line of lifestyle products while practising as an interior designer.
But now her Lyfestyled entity has pivoted to Kyly’s Constructions, which helps clients renovate their homes and even builds granny flats.
She seeks out House Rules star George Batarseh as her building adviser.
STYLIST SELLS AT NORTH BONDI
In-demand stylist Jess Pecoraro and her husband Steven Monaco are have sold their North Bondi home.
The home was marketed as a near-new designer beach house by its Raine & Horne Double Bay selling agents Ric Serrao and Mark Yeats, who had a $5 million-plus guide.
Pecoraro and Monaco paid $3.5 million just 18 months ago for the home on the dress circle Hastings Pde. They extensively renovated the two-level, 1920s home which saw a redesign on both levels.
There are four bedrooms, three bathrooms, a new Carrara marble gas kitchen with Liebherr fridges, and a rear entertainers courtyard complete with integrated pizza oven.
Pecoraro is never in one place for too long, having successfully flipped houses in Paddington, Annandale and an apartment in North Bondi.
The queen of North Bondi, and its most recent big-ticket buyer, is Orna Triguboff, the eldest daughter of property developer Harry Triguboff, who has spent $11.5 million to purchase Wendy Court, a block of four units with the prospect of adding a penthouse level.
Dr Triguboff, a yoga and meditation teacher, and founder of Kabbalah-inspired college Neshama Life, has been living in the Swell development at Bondi Beach.
HARRY SEIDLER’S INTACT CASTLE
Basser House, the 1981 Harry Seidler-designed Castle Cove home, has been listed for sale for the first time.
The house, which featured in the 1992 architecture book Harry Seidler: Four Decades of Architecture, goes to June 4 McGrath auction with $4.75 million hopes.
The Padulla Pl vendor is Braham Basser, nephew of Dr L.S. Basser, who commissioned the plans for the modernist home built to take advantage of bushland Middle Harbour views.
It sits on a 778sqm north-facing block.
It is being marketed as a “one of the few remaining Seidler houses that boasts all its original features”, and even showcases original interior furniture and fittings, Seidler’s wife Penelope noted.
CASTING THE CITY
Warner Bros are casting for a new Foxtel spin-off, Selling in the City Australia, with filming to start in the Sydney CBD in August.
They want inner-city properties that can get added value from their team with expert knowledge.
They are looking for sellers who want to move up the property ladder, maybe need more space with a baby on the way, or those who want to quit the “latte lifestyle”.
They want five apartments, warehouse conversions or townhouses.
Although there will be complementary sponsorships, the vendors must be prepared to spend 3.5 per cent of the independent home valuation on their renovation.
Unrenovated houses that have struggled to sell stay with Andrew Winter’s Selling Houses Australia and his new team.
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