Hope Island mansion on Gold Coast once owned by billionaire Lang Walker provides test for top end of market

The owners of a Gold Coast mansion formerly owned by a billionaire have put it to auction. It comes complete with a cinema, 12-car garage, tennis court, gym, wine store and more.

FOR Lang Walker, billionaire property developer, a Mediterranean-style mansion he bought within the Hope Island Resort in 2006 was big in every way.

The house had nearly 1700sq m of living space, sat on a near 5000sq m site, and had a 220-metre frontage to a deepwater harbour.

Of course, probably equally important to Lang was the fact that his superyacht could be moored out the front where there was a 30-metre pontoon and a boathouse.

Hence, given his financial status – and that he just happened to own the Hope Island Resort — he was a logical buyer of the giant.

Harbour Point seen from the water.

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Move ahead 16 years and the house, known as Harbour Point, is poised to provide a big test for the top end of the northern Gold Coast’s residential market.

The Chinese owners who bought it from Lang’s Walker Corporation are putting it to auction next month.

They paid $9 million during the GFC in 2009, handing Lang a $400,000 loss on his five-year tenure.

The outcome of the latest sales push might well draw keen interest from the man who engaged in the two-year job of building it.

He’s Gary Chuck, a fellow who at 14 was milking cows in Victoria, ventured into the motor industry, and went on to start a national car-warranty business.

Lang Walker sold Riverpoint for $9 million in 2009.

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Nineteen years ago, after some success with spec homes on the Gold Coast, Gary spent $2.1 million buying the Riverdale Drive peninsula site that became home to Harbour Point.

His motivation wasn’t solely about another ‘spec’ venture – no, he also owned a boat-brokerage business and the mooring space was going to be useful.

When he put the home on the market in late 2003 he had a 96-footer called Big Boss sitting virtually at the front door.

Gary also had big ambitions, listing the property at $15 million – a price unheard of at that end of the Gold Coast and probably in the whole city.

Mega-mansion Sails is back on the market for $16.88 million.

It was nearly a year later that Lang became the buyer at $9.4 million.

The Chinese owners selling this time around are able to trumpet Harbour Point features such as a 12-seat cinema with bar, 12-car garaging, a tennis court, and a gymnasium and wine store.

Come August and it will become clear whether their bid to sell will yield a price anywhere near the Hope Island Resort’s price record.

That’s $16.5 million, paid by a Vietnamese buyer in 2017 for a waterfront mansion spanning three blocks in Virginia Drive.

Sails, a home that Gary Chuck built at the resort after selling Harbour Point, sold for $11 million in 2016 and cruised back on to the market four months ago at $16.88 million.

Gary, a year before the GFC, had $25 million ambitions for the property but he ran into financial trouble, administrators moved in, and Sails was sold for $9.75 million in 2008.

Meanwhile, the Hope Island Resort has the wood on neighbour Sanctuary Cove in terms of highest price – the record at the ‘Cove’ is the $12 million former car-dealer John Zupp paid in 2012 for a riverfront home.