Gold Coast business: Fresh bid to offload glamour penthouse

A fresh push is being made to sell a Main Beach penthouse which once hosted US socialite Paris Hilton - with a new asking price to tempt cashed-up buyers.

AN item on a nightly television news report has contended, wrongly, that a big-ticket penthouse at Main Beach in which US socialite Paris Hilton once was entertained is on the market for the first time in 20 years.

The statement’s reminiscent of the days when properties west of Nerang aimed at gullible out-of-town buyers were described in advertisements as ‘handy to the beach’.

Fortunately, thanks to technology and today’s property-search systems, most buyers look deeper today than some news reports and advertisements.

Anyone seriously looking at the Main Beach penthouse will discover that it was marketed in 2006 and today is in the middle of its fourth marketing push since 2017.

The swimming pool area at the Oscar on Main penthouse. Photo: Supplied

In fact, a property data base records the penthouse as having spent more than 600 days on the market since June 2017.

The property sits atop the Harry Triguboff-built Oscar on Main tower – Oscar is Harry’s middle name - and was bought new for $2 million in 1998.

The buyer, and he’s still the owner, is a fellow called Wayne Sharpe, who was joint founder nearly 30 years back of trade-dollars business Bartercard.

The then bachelor later said he bought the penthouse because he wanted to live among glitz and glamour without actually feeling that he was doing that.

Wayne achieved that aim but went on to jet off to an even bigger glitz and glamour pond – London.

Wayne Sharpe pictured in the penthouse he is selling at Oscar on Main at Main Beach. Picture: Mike Batterham

His 2006 effort to leave ‘Oscar’ came with hopes of finding a party keen on the high life near the ocean and with more than $10 million to spend.

The penthouse sat in the Sharpe portfolio, unmoved, until a new sales push was fired up in 2017 and interest above $10 million again was sought for a ‘true home in the sky – one in a league of its own’.

The ‘ask’ later was trimmed to $7.95 million.

Two subsequent ‘pushes’ didn’t produce an enthusiastic multi-millionaire and today another hunt is under way.

It seems, according to that television news feature, Wayne’s expectations today have ‘waned’ and are above $6 million.

The penthouse boasts stunning views.

The so-called selling points with the four-bedroom Sharpe sky mansion range from a three-tonne tank for tropical fish to a bar and a private steam room.

Any ‘richie’ taking the penthouse plunge can dive into a rooftop pool that is nearly two metres deep and long enough for swimming laps.

Of course, there are penthouses aplenty at Main Beach and the suburb for years held the Gold Coast record for such apartments.

It was set in 2012 when Melbourne builder Peter Devitt paid $9.2 million for the apartment that crowns Main Beach’s Liberty Panorama tower.

That figure was bettered in 2018 when developer Ron Bakir sold his expansive Chevron Renaissance pad in Surfers Paradise for $9.5 million.