The Sell: Symond sale paves way for $22.4m Med retreat
With plans to spend more time on the French Riviera, John Symond has relisted his Point Piper mega-mansion, Wingadal, for a record $200m-plus. Meanwhile, league identity Nathan Brown has sold his watefront Sutherland home.
NSW
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The reason for the relisting of Point Piper’s mega-mansion Wingadal by Aussie Home Loans founder John Symond came with the advisory that the retired mortgage broker plans to spend more time overseas.
That means the French Riviera when he’s not in London.
The family has quietly bought Roc et Mer, a retreat on the Mediterranean at Eze-sur-Mer.
The home, set on a waterfront cliff between Nice and Monaco, looks out towards the tip of the Saint Jean Cap Ferrat peninsula and along the coast towards Cap d’Ail.
It is at the foot of the enchanting hilltop Eze-le-Village, about 430m above the Mediterranean.
The €13.75m ($A22.4m) spend was in the names of his two children, Stephen Symond and Deborah O’Neil.
Renovations to the five-storey home with 650sq m space were under way when The Sell cruised by over the Easter break.
His Point Piper offering comes with $200m-plus hopes, smashing all house price records nationally. The talk is offers will need to be substantially more than $200m.
“Wingadal has been a special home for my family over the past two decades, and now I’m looking forward to spending more time travelling overseas,” Symond said.
Travel plans were also given as the motivation when Wingadal was listed seven years ago for $100m, and the offers got as high as $110m.
At the time, he and then-wife Amber had just taken occupancy of their unusually large Knightsbridge, London, apartment that was their bolthole when not cruising the Med on the 73m-long luxury motor yacht Hasna.
Symond had paid a combined £44.5m for two apartments and combined them into a single, six-bedroom residence over four floors. Of course, the 11,500-square-foot London apartment is currently on the market for £50m and Hasna was sold off in 2020.
Symond later advised he had “probably rushed into the decision” to list Wingadal in 2017.
And now with little different, other than approved plans for a jetty, Symond will enjoy the benefits of the staggering price growth of his tax-free primary residence.
Wingadal had been a no-expense-spared exercise during its eight-year build after the land cost $10.85m in what was 1998’s top Sydney sale through late agent Bart Doff.
It had previously been a 1950s doughnut-shaped Guilford Bell house built for the Hordern family which was demolished in 1989 by New Zealand pulp magnate John Spencer, after approval from the Heritage Council, which ignored opposition from the Royal Australian Institute of Architects. It certainly got a memorable pre-demolition party.
Architect Alec Tzannes has said the commission to design the four-level replacement for Symond had been a career highlight. Presumably Tzannes and Symond were delighted that there was not one reference to its mischievous nickname “Aussie Stadium” in the glowing midweek reports. The nickname dated from its bulky resemblance to the Sydney Football Stadium that Aussie Home Loans was sponsoring at the time.
EX-NRL COACH OFFLOADS BAY HOME
Former NRL coach Nathan Brown, whose playing days ended in 2000 after a neck injury, has sold his waterfront Sutherland Shire home. It had been bought with wife, children’s fashion retailer Tanya, for $1.62m in 2009 from the Tynam family.
The couple have pocketed $6.6m for the Caringbah South home that they rebuilt in 2018 after it was damaged by a fire.
They created a three-level, five-bedroom home on the 925sq m holding on the Port Hacking River, with a number of wraparound balconies that overlook the bay. There’s lift access to two of the levels.
Down by the water, there’s a jetty, pontoon, slip rails and a boathouse.
Brown had tried to sell the Gannons Rd home in 2018 when it was an empty shell, seeking $3.75m for the sloping block without success.
He tried again in 2022 when he was in charge of the Warriors in New Zealand. The family has relocated to the Gold Coast in Queensland following the sale through local agents Laura McKay and Mitchell Wynn.
When Brown was appointed coach of St George Illawarra for the 2003 season, he became, at 29, one of the youngest non-playing coaches ever in the NRL.
The former coach, who most recently was the Parramatta Eels elite pathways coaching director, had also been the head coach at the Knights, Warriors and northern England’s Huddersfield Giants and winner of a premiership at St Helens in the Super League.
The couple returned to live in the Sutherland Shire in 2004 when they sold their modern Beach St, Coogee apartment.
Grafton-born Brown, who married Tanya Priddle in 1999, had previously lived in a Dolans Bay waterfront.
The couple met in 1997 after Brown had teammate Mark Coyne introduce him to his family’s babysitter.
ARCHITECT RELISTS HOME AFTER FIRST BID DOESN’T GO TO PLAN
Architect Rob Mirams, from the acclaimed architectural firm Fender Katsalidis, has listed his top-floor Rose Bay apartment for a May 11 auction.
The offering through Alexander Phillips and Gavin Lewis at PPD Real Estate is in the Del Rey beachfront complex of nine apartments.
It comes with $4.5m price guidance.
The relisting comes after Ben Collier at The Agency failed late last year in his auction campaign when there was overly ambitious $6m guidance.
The three-bedroom, two-bathroom apartment with off-street parking has northerly Harbour Bridge views.
The 94sq m apartment has been redesigned by Mirams in an open-plan presentation using a soft palette of materials including quality wood veneer and natural stone benchtops.
The kitchen has many Miele appliances plus a wine fridge.
The third bedroom has been set up as a home office with pull down Murphy bed.
There are two stylish bathrooms with underfloor heating and heated towel rails.
The strata levies are $2600 a quarter.
It was bought in 2010 for $1.4m.
The last sale in the tightly held Del Rey building on its New South Head Rd battle-axe holding was in 2015. The highest price was in 2014 when an apartment sold for $1,925,000.
Median apartment prices in Rose Bay sit at $1,491,500, according to PropTrack, with $3m price tags for three-bedroom apartments. Growth over the past 12 months is up 36 per cent based on 35 sales.
There have been 2822 page views on realestate.com.au so far during the marketing campaign.
Mirams runs the Sydney practice of Fender Katsalidis, which has produced a diverse body of work within master planning, mixed-use, multi-residential, hotels, cultural and commercial sectors in Australia, Asia and the Gulf Region.
Mirams took equity in the firm when he joined the board in 2017.
POWER DUO BOWLED OVER BY $8.5M SALE
Cricket power couple Alyssa Healy and Mitchell Starc have pocketed $8,531,000 in the settlement of their North Curl Curl home.
The residence failed to sell last November when listed for with $9m price guidance, attracting no bids.
The designer home, built by model Jennifer Hawkins and her husband, builder Jake Wall, with four bedrooms and three bathrooms had been bought for $5.235m in 2016.
The couple relisted the Pitt Rd house set on 758sq m with a revised guide of $8m, and it sold in mid-February without price disclosure on slightly delayed settlement terms to David Harrison, who founded AustCorp Executive.
In March, the couple settled on their upgrade to the $24m Terrey Hills estate Charlotte Park. Set atop a natural escarpment nest to Ku-ring-gai Chase National Park, the two-storey dwelling on 1.8ha had been designed by architect Michael Kilkeary for Simone Mills, the wife of Cadence & Co construction firm co-founder Darren Mills.
It comes with equestrian facilities, an American-style barn, pool, tennis court, chicken coop, kitchen garden and garaging for 13 cars.
Their purchase price easily surpassed the $14.1m local record secured last spring by Oxanda Education childcare entrepreneur Adrian Fonseca and his wife, Nancy Reardon-Fonseca, for their 1.76ha Myoora Rd holding, which also featured a Cadence & Co home.
The couple, who rank among Cricket Australia’s highest-paid contractual players, married in 2016.
EX-SOLDIER CHARGES BACK INTO MARKET
Retired Special Forces commander Heston Russell has bought an inner-city pad in Darlinghurst for $1.05m.
He has secured the one-bedroom, one-bathroom in a warehouse conversion, just a week into its auction campaign through Ray White agent Jeremy Fink.
The 75sq m unit was marketed as a “charismatic urban retreat”.
The apartment last sold in 2007 for $393,000.
It marks Russell’s return to the strata market, having sold in 2021 in Potts Point for $980,000. It had been bought from Troy Wilkie at Channel 9 Life’s Luxury Homes Revealed for $790,000 in 2018 when he was the head of operations at Barry’s Bootcamp.
Russell has been in the news after the former army commando was defamed in reports alleging members of the platoon he led in Afghanistan executed a prisoner because they wouldn’t all fit on a helicopter.
Russell won around $400,000 in a defamation case against the ABC as well as a legal costs order.
He is rumoured to feature in an upcoming Spotlight program on the Seven Network.
After 16 years of serving in the military, he maintains his advocacy for veterans as the managing director of Veteran Support Force. Russell also founded the Veteran Games in 2023 as a charity event. They will be held on the Gold Coast in August.
TACKLING THE NEXT PHASE
Recent NRL retiree Tautau Moga and wife Toni have listed their home at Warners Bay.
Harcourts Newcastle+Lake Macquarie agent Sam Tsiaousis says the home has been beautifully renovated. It comes with a $895,000 guide.
The three-bedroom Lisa Ave abode cost them $655,000 while he was playing at the Newcastle Knights in 2019.
He logged 87 NRL games with six teams over 12 seasons.
BEACH EXIT ALL GOES TO PLAN
Interior designer Chloe Matters has snappily sold her freestanding Bondi Beach property, which has approved plans for a designer residence.
The 581sq m Forest Knoll Ave home had a $7 million guide through Maclay Longhurst at Sotheby’s and while the final price was undisclosed, it seems it started with a seven.
Matters and her former husband, estate agent Adrian Oddi, had purchased it for $7.85 million in 2021.
SETTING SALE FOR NEW OWNER
Master mariner Daniel Oatley, the yachtsman grandson of the late sailing winemaker Bob Oatley, has listed his three-level Avalon Beach property that sits on Pittwater through LJH agent Jonothan Gosselin.
The Paradise Ave home was bought in 2017 from music industry executive Tim Prescott and his interior designer wife Frances Georgeson for $4.6 million. It comes with a boatshed and jetty.
Got a property news tip? Email jonathan.chancellor@news.com.au
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