On The QT: Paul Scanlon picks up $5.5m Paradise Waters mansion on Gold Coast
A Gold Coast home formerly owned by the creator of Dreamworld has sold for more than $5 million. READ THE WHOLE STORY
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A FELLOW who at one time ran and invested in a boat-builder that eventually ‘sank’ appears to have cruised into Paradise Waters to pick up a landmark riverfront mansion for $5.5 million.
He’s Paul Scanlon and the company he ran was Mustang Marine, at the time Australia’s second largest marine manufacturer.
The mansion in question is known as Keith’s house – it was built 36 years ago by tourism entrepreneur the late Keith Williams, of Sea World and Hamilton Island fame, and wife Thea.
Its subsequent owners have included Dreamworld creator John Longhurst.
Earlier this month the latest in a list of subsequent owners, Sep and Flora Abedian, found a buyer, not identified at the time.
Just what will happen to the landmark home once it shifts into its new ownership is something of a 64 million dollar question.
Paul’s mooted ultimately to be behind the company that’s done the deal and he’s no stranger to the street in which the ex-Williams home sits, Commodore Drive.
Nine years ago, and via company Global Nominees, he bought a four- bedroom refurbished house next to the ex-Williams house for $2.7 million.
The house later was bowled and the 835sqm site sold for $2.85 million in 2017.
The ex-Williams property sits on one of the larger lots in the street – a 1489sqm holding that looks across the river to The Southport School.
Whether it would be viable to demolish the house and sell off the land is questionable.
A few doors along the street a Chinese buyer who paid $7 million three years ago for a larger holding, one of 1732sqm, is trying to exit.
At the rate he paid, $4041 a square metre, the Williams holding would be worth around $6 million.
Paul, in his own 2017 sale, achieved only $3374 a square metre.
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And what does the latest sale of ‘Keith’s house’ at $5.5 million deliver to the buyer, apart from a blue-chip site?
The home, which high-rise ‘master’ Ron McMaster was hired to build in the 1980s, spans 1200sqm and has a three-level Vatican-inspired staircase.
Its features include a games room with wet bar, wine cellar, gym, workshop, pool, jetty, and seven-car basement garage.
There’s an eight-seat cinema, ideal for a fellow like Paul should he like to watch boating shows.
He became the CEO of Mustang Marine, a sports cruiser and flybridge manufacturer, in 2005 after being part of a team which undertook a $65 million management buyout of the business.
The business sailed into turbulent waters in 2007 and Paul was sacked by receivers.
Post-Mustang he headed property funder Global Investments and today is CEO at Sydney-based Prime Capital.
The Prime website espouses his finance qualifications, which take in an MBA and being a master of applied finance, the political economy, and law.
He’s apparently completing a master of philosophy (science) degree.
Perhaps some of the study for that was done in Surfers Paradise – he bought an apartment high up in the Golden Gate tower for $600,000 in 2011 and sold it last year for $1.2 million.
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