Mystery surrounds the $60 million Chinese-owned vacant estates of Toorak

Nearly $60 million worth of real estate in one of Toorak's most-exclusive streets has been reduced to a patch of dirt, with mystery surrounding what's going to happen to it.

On well-heeled St Georges Road, where two grand mansions once stood side by side, sits a couple of Melbourne's priciest vacant blocks after bulldozers razed both properties.

Melbourne real estate records were smashed a few years ago when a Chinese buyer paid just under $40 million for the 1920s Mowbray mansion at 18 St Georges Road.

The gates of Mowbray remain after a 1930s mansion was knocked down in Toorak.Credit: Luis Enrique Ascui

The palatial six-bedder, sitting on 5000sqm with a swimming pool and tennis court, succumbed to the dozer blade in recent months after it was damaged by fire and vandals started getting inside the vacant property.

The gates bearing the Mowbray name are still standing.

Title documents show the property belongs to a buyer by the name of Qi Yang. The Australian Financial Review reported at the time that Mr Qi won Foreign Investment Review Board approval to buy the land, which came with a hefty $5 million stamp duty bill.

The City of Stonnington said no plans had been lodged for the property after a demolition permit was granted in May last year.

The vacant block at 16 St Georges Road in Toorak.Credit: Tom Cowie

Under the council's planning scheme, a planning permit is only required for two or more dwellings or a subdivision.

There is no sign of tradies next door either, since the Idylwilde mansion was controversially torn down in 2015, prompting an outcry in the community over lost heritage.

Bought for $18.5 million in 2013, the former landmark 1913 estate at 16 St Georges Road is now chock full of weeds and surrounded by security fencing.

The lack of action has prompted speculation about landbanking.

The former house at 16 St Georges Road, Toorak.

Owner Xiaoyan "Kylie" Bao put the property on the market last year with a $40 million plus price guide after plans to build a grand $18 million home were shelved.

However, one buyers' advocate who deals with high-end property said the owner would be lucky to get anywhere near that.

The Idylewilde mansion was destroyed in 2015.Credit: Eddie Jim

"They paid way over the top," the property watcher said.

Those two vacant blocks could soon be joined by another, if a third mansion is demolished further down the street.

A 7200sqm block at 29-31 St Georges Road is quietly up for sale after sitting dormant for nearly three decades.

The rumoured asking price is as much as $75 million, after the property was bought by the Yu family for $5 million in 1991.

A chunk of change like that would obliterate the property record established by Mowbray and later eclipsed when Australia’s former government house, Stonington in Malvern, sold for $52.5 million in 2018.

The former Mowbray mansion at 18 St Georges Road in Toorak.

Several planning applications have been knocked back over the years to build units on the land, however there might finally be a change of ownership around the corner.

A half-built French Renaissance-style house on the land would probably be knocked over, according to selling agent Andrew Baines.

"It's purely land," he said.

The tennis court, pool and mansion are no more at 18 St Georges Road.Credit: Luis Enrique Ascui

Toorak Village Residents Action Group president Eddie Young said the neighbours were waiting to see what would happen with the properties.

He said he had been told that a single dwelling would be built at 18 St Georges Road, which locals were pleased with.

Next door, however, was another story.

"It's a mystery," he said. "And it looks dreadful."