Billionaire Will Vicars buys (another) Bondi Beach penthouse

Even before a bungalow on the Tamarama headland sold this week – price undisclosed but listed with $50 million hopes – the oceanfront suburbs from North Bondi to Bronte were already pulling a gilded crowd.

Billionaire fund manager Will Vicars was among the beaches’ early adopters in 2012 when he bought a penthouse in the Bondi Pacific for $10.05 million, purchased its neighbour the following year for $10.9 million and a third penthouse in 2016 to consolidate a $32 million super-spread for those weekends away from his Point Piper home.

But are three Bondi Beach penthouses enough? It seems not, given records show the Caledonia Investments joint chief investment officer has purchased a fourth atop the Pacific, this time for $8.25 million from EverBlu Capital’s chair Adam Blumenthal.

Adam Blumenthal’s penthouse at the rear of Bondi Pacific sold for $8.25 million.

The three-bedder at the rear of the block looking west had been listed by The Agency’s Steven Chen and Ben Collier, and the result more than doubled the $3.9 million Blumenthal paid almost a decade ago.

Will Vicars now owns four of the penthouses atop the Bondi Pacific.Credit: James Brickwood

Vicars is not the only big-spending consolidator locally. Take Afterpay co-founder Nick Molnar, who is outdoing himself on North Bondi’s Ben Buckler clifftop.

Having amassed a $45 million site, Molnar has bulldozed the block of six units and his adjoining triplex to make way for what the approved DA says will be a single residence designed by SJB with basement parking and a pool. So, that’s nine homes into one.

Exciting for Molnar, but less so for the neighbours, some of whom were nervously checking the DA’s geo-technical approvals with council this week as three rock saws were busy excavating into the sandstone clifftop.

The site of what was recently a block of six apartments and a triplex owned by Nick Molnar was being excavated this week.Credit: Lucy Macken

Waverley Council didn’t seem to share local concerns that the lot was about to slide into the ocean below, although work was stopped temporarily and a surveyor sent out to double-check that it was all compliant with an additional 5.5 metre excavation that was approved in March.

Afterpay co-founder Nick Molnar is building a single residence on the Ben Buckler clifftop where there were nine apartments previously.Credit: Yianni Aspradakis

Molnar has been dividing his time between Australia and the United States since he sold Afterpay to Jack Dorsey’s Block tech conglomerate for $39 billion two years ago, taking his taste for real estate with him.

In 2021 Molnar paid $US21.6 million for the LA penthouse of Friends′ star Matthew Perry, and sold it earlier last month for $US21 million to pop star Rihanna given his move to a beachfront house in Malibu, which he bought for $US29 million from tennis legend John McEnroe.

The consolidation plays by Vicars and Molnar make sense of this week’s record-blowing sale of a bungalow at Tamarama Beach, for close to the bottom of the $47 million to $52 million price range, to adman David Droga given it is set on 1100 square metres of prime oceanfront reserve.

Adman David Droga has no need for any costly consolidation given Lang Syne in Tamarama is set on 1100 square metres.Credit: Domain

Droga, the founder of global agency Droga5, is expected to refashion the house into a single residence, albeit on one of the largest privately held parcels of land on Sydney’s oceanfront reserve, when he eventually returns to Sydney from New York’s East Village.

Bondi’s rich legacy

Returning to the Pacific at Bondi Beach, the three-bedroom apartment long owned by the late art collector, trophy home trader and businessman John Schaeffer has been sold on the quiet.

The Bondi Beach apartment that the late John Schaeffer purchased in 2016 for $7 million has been quietly sold.Credit: Domain

The result is expected to be more than $10.3 million judging by underbidder interest while it was in off-market negotiations by The Agency’s Steven Chen and Raine & Horne’s Ric Serrao.

John Schaeffer died in a tragic accident in mid-2020.Credit: Lyn Mills

Schaeffer died in a tragic accident in 2020, aged 79, so the apartment was sold on behalf of his partner, documentary producer Bettina Dalton and daughter Joanne Schaeffer.

It last traded for $7 million in 2017.

Like so many of Schaeffer’s legendary deals, it has not been without complications.

A judgment in the Supreme Court revealed that Schaeffer’s company, which owned the apartment, was subject to a cash funding agreement set up by Schaeffer’s former business associate Charles Blinkworth, who also then died in early 2020.

Tamarama’s new arrival

Brae Sokolski, part-owner of Melbourne Cup winner Verry Elleegant and co-founder of property financing group MaxCap, has made his recent move to Sydney official by buying a house behind the beach in Tamarama.

The Tamarama house long owned by Ken and Jean McDonald has sold for more than $13 million.Credit: Domain

Sokolski’s new digs was on offer through Richardson & Wrench’s Jason Boon and Belle Property’s Daniel Gillespie for more than $13 million.

Sokolski became acquainted with the area in 2021 when he spent the bulk of lockdown living in Bondi Beach, the same year US giant Apollo Global Management took a half stake in MaxCap in a deal that valued the company at more than $300 million.

Brae Sokolski is part owner of 2021 Melbourne Cup winner Verry Elleegant.Credit: Steven Siewert

As values are recalibrated along the North Bondi to Bronte oceanfront, venture capitalist Craig Blair is no doubt conscious of his good timing. The AirTree Ventures co-founder and his partner Melanie Caffrey listed their home on the Clovelly border on Gordon’s Bay this week with a $16 million guide.

The couple were the recent Bronte record setters at close to $30 million when they purchased the designer home of Cygnet Capital’s Darien Jagger and his wife Katie.

Sotheby’s James Ball has set a June 10 auction for the six-bedroom house, set just up the road from the knock-down rebuild recently purchased by radio’s Jackie “O” Henderson for $13.25 million.