The Sell: Test cricketer Nathan Lyon and partner Emma McCarthy buy first home together
Nathan Lyon and his partner Emma McCarthy have bought their first home together, joining a long list of Test cricketers who dabble in property, writes Jonathan Chancellor.
NSW
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Australian off-spinner Nathan Lyon and his partner Emma McCarthy have bought their first home together.
They’ve paid $3.8 million for a newly-built townhouse in the riverside suburb of Tennyson Point in Sydney.
Their new home has five bedrooms, five bathrooms and three car spaces on its 400sqm built by Davina Constructions boss David Buono.
The suburb’s median house price is $3.1 million, according to realestate.com.au data, up on its $2.9 million median from 20 house sales last year.
The purchase by Lyon, who this summer approaches 100 Tests and 400 Test wickets, marks a shift from the Sutherland Shire, where he lived with his former longtime partner, Mel Waring, and their two children.
The former couple had resided at two waterfronts, first at Oyster Bay, then Port Hacking which he sold for $3,615,000, a near-$200,000 loss, earlier this year.
Waring announced earlier this year on Instagram that she had secured a home in Canberra’s Farrar, which public records show cost $1,365,000.
The most capped player in the Australian Test side, who hasn’t missed a Test in seven years, appears almost as keen on property as current and former teammates.
Unquestionably Steve Smith and David Warner lead the way.
Earlier this year Smith and wife Dani purchased a Vaucluse home for $6.6 million, and then set about a major renovation.
Smith had poured $5.3 million into property investments between 2015 and 2017, with three on the Balmain peninsula. He retains a three-bedroom Coogee penthouse.
Warner has been focusing on building his Maroubra mansion, having previously been very active buying investments with his wife Candice.
The couple spent around $5.5 million on investments, including a $2.66 million stopgap home, but nothing has been added to their portfolio since 2017.
Lyon recently acknowledged he is still living in legend Shane Warne’s shadow, telling a podcast with sports reporter Neroli Meadows how his teammate Mitchell Starc ribs him that his 96 Tests include 85 Test debuts because he feels he is permanently on trial.
Fast bowler Starc and his wife Alyssa Healy have spent more than $5 million on investments on Sydney’s northern beaches, where they live in a $5.2 million home bought from property power couple Jennifer Hawkins and Jake Wall three years ago.
Legendary spin king Warne, who regularly stars on the Melbourne property scene, is still seeking a buyer for his Brighton trophy home which went to auction last weekend.
THE HIDEAWAY AT PALM BEACH SELLS
The Hideaway, the captivating Palm Beach estate long owned by art dealer Shirley Wagner and her husband Jan, has been quietly sold for $14 million.
It had hit the market with overly ambitious $20 million hopes, but its sale likely ranks as the third-most expensive non-beachfront in the millionaires’ holiday playground that’s fast become a work from home office precinct.
The hillside 1930s residence, rebuilt in 1970 on 4000sqm near the golf course just off Barrenjoey Rd, was offered for the first time since 1988, when it was bought for $1.63 million from John and Elizabeth Hermann.
The Hideaway was built for tailor Ernest Verey, who sold it in 1946 for £4000, with it then operating as the Vere Mathews Restaurant.
It was then a private hotel, with the overnight tariff costing £2 pounds and 20 shillings in the early 1960s.
Interestingly, Antony Catalano ran his ruler over the 80 square residence, briefly thinking it could potentially be the second in his desired rollout of Rae’s Wategos-style venues along the east coast.
Shirley Wagner, died in 2018, aged 83, followed by her husband of 62 years, Jan (John) in June this year, prompting siblings Nadine and Leon to list the Mediterrean jewel with Noel Nicholson at Ray White.
There are also whispers of a $15 million sale of one of Palm Beach’s priciest holiday rentals, Karala, given Silvana Marshall and her husband Richard Marshall, the former head of legal for mining giant Glencore Xstrata, are returning to Switzerland.
The popular $25,000 rental last traded in 2017 when bought for $12 million from hedge fund manager Adrian Vanderspuy and his wife Vanessa, owners of the Oldenburg Vineyard in South Africa.
RON MEDICH SUPPORTS FAMILY FROM LOCK-UP
Even from inside Lithgow jail, convicted murderer Ron Medich is helping his family out.
His daughter Pamela has just spent $2.6 million on a Paddington terrace, with her imprisoned father providing the mortgage.
Pamela, who has dabbled in property industry jobs, is one of Medich’s four children with his first wife Gail.
O’Brien Legal came up with the accompanying memorandum of mortgage, with lawyer Patrick O’Brien prepping the paperwork in July 2018.
Pamela’s property developer father was sentenced in June that year to 30 years in jail after being found to be the mastermind behind the 2009 murder of his business foe Michael McGurk.
Once worth more than $100 million, Medich was complaining before his sentence that he had only $1000 left in the bank, blaming his financial situation on his estranged wife Odetta, who he alleged would not give him “one red cent”.
Medich awaits his appeal decision, after Bret Walker SC suggested that the case against him depended on “flimsy” corroboration and unreliable accomplice evidence.
WALLER SNARES A RECORD-HOLDER
Hall of Fame trainer Chris Waller, who trained Winx, and wife Stephanie have upgraded handsomely in the Hills district to a discounted record-holder.
The couple have emerged as the $6.5 million buyer of an acreage.
Marketed as the one of the best estates, it looks a savvy acquisition by the Wallers, with the price going backwards from three years ago when bought by Chinese interests for $6,666,666, a suburb record at the time.
The seven-bedroom, 10-bathroom home on 2ha at Kenthurst, listed in March, comes with a championship-size tennis court and basketball court, as well as a children’s playground and a 16m pool with water slide and spa.
There’s a self-contained sports and entertainment room marketed as having one of the largest party bars in the Hills, and underground cellar.
There’s also a covered alfresco area with a wood-fired pizza oven.
The purchase will increase the commute time to Rosehill from their Baulkham Hills home of the past decade.
The Wallers had paid $1.25 million for the five-bedroom family home, which then-Daily Telegraph racing columnist Ken Callander wrote was “a roomy comfortable house”, while adding he would bet a lot of their neighbours don’t even know who they are.
Falling prices in the Hills seems to be an emerging trend.
There was a $5.75 million Dural sale ahead of this weekend’s auction of Sierra Morena, the 2015 record holder on Davey Rd that had sold at $6,398,000 in 2015, also to Chinese interests.
$13M PRICE TAG FOR ROSE BAY APARTMENT
Former Ferrari Australasia boss Herbert Appleroth has his Rose Bay beachside apartment listed for auction next February with $13 million hopes, a record for the suburb.
Appleroth paid $7.58 million off the plan for the three-bedroom garden apartment in the Bord De L’eau development in 2016, settling on the 218sqm unit in mid-2019, about six months before he exited Ferrari.
The triplex apartment designed by architects MHN Design Union is being marketed as house-like by LJ Hooker Avnu agent Michael Coombs.
It comes with Vitroesa Italian sliders to its private garden designed by Will Dangar. There’s also a marble kitchen with a New York-style bar.
Appleroth now manages venture capital fund The Appleroth Future Fund.
His previous abode was on Pyrmont Wharf, which sold for a then-suburb record $13.3 million in 2017.
RUMOURS FLY ON ASTOR BUY
Fintech investor Danita Lowes has bought into the Sydney 1920s apartment block The Astor.
There are whispers it’s the apartment recently sold by UK-based theatrical couple Cate Blanchett and Andrew Upton, who have abandoned Sydney.
Their little-used bolthole had $12 million hopes through Christie’s International agent Ken Jacobs.
Originally three apartments, the two-storey Macquarie St abode was once home to entertainer Barry Humphries and then mortgage broker Mark Bouris.
Lowes has recently sold shares in Tyro, the tech payments company, worth $19 million held via Euclid Capital Partners with husband David Fite.
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