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This was published 6 months ago
Beachfront billionaire to get a new neighbour in record $32m home sale
By Lucy Macken
Sean Katz, co-founder and chairman of alternative investment platform AltX, and his wife Bonita are the hot tip to have purchased the beachfront Watsons Bay home of medico entrepreneur Philippa McCaffery.
McCaffery, founder of Clear Skincare Clinics, and Philip Damp had listed the beachfront house at Camp Cove with Sotheby’s Michael Pallier for $30 million last year.
The home of medico entrepreneur Philippa McCaffery has set a Watsons Bay house price record of $32 million.Credit: Domain
Settlement is expected to reveal a $32 million sale price later this year, more than three times the $9.2 million paid for it a decade ago.
While the Katz family has yet to make a move, they have already listed their designer digs in nearby Vaucluse with a $29 million guide through Pallier and JT Allen’s Joshua Allen.
Dr Philippa McCaffery is the founder of Clear Skincare.Credit: NIC_WALKER
The Katzes had undertaken a major rebuild of their Vaucluse house following their purchase in 2009 for $4.5 million, commissioning architect Brian Myerson, of MHN Design Union, to recreate what is now an ultra-contemporary, five-storey house with a gym and lap pool.
The McCaffery home sale set a suburb high for Watsons Bay, topping the previous $28.1 million high set along the Camp Cove beachfront by developer Vaughan Blank in 2008 when he purchased what was then a house known as Villa Porto Rosa built in the 1920s for the Foy retail family.
The MHN Design Union residence of Sean and Bonita Katz is for sale with a $29 million guide.Credit: Domain
Sharing the exclusive beachfront with Blank and Katz are the likes of billionaire Stephen Lowy, filmmaker George Miller and developer Allen Linz.
Bird life
An opulent Dural acreage listed for $15 million might pique the interest of those familiar with El Jannah chicken, which is a fair few people given the humble eatery that was established in Granville in 1998 has since spread to more than 20 locations on the back of its cult-like status.
The Dural acreage of Carol and Andre Estephan is listed with record-setting $15 million hopes.Credit: Domain
Founders of the chicken empire, Carol and Andre Estephan, may have even put some of the proceeds of the many charcoal Lebanese-style chicken sales towards their luxury acreage and its six-bedroom, seven-bathroom mansion.
The 2.11-hectare property was purchased a decade ago for $4.6 million and comes with a championship-sized tennis court, pool and cabana, cinema room, gymnasium, billiard room, and vast indoor and outdoor living spaces featuring opulent interiors by Sandra Ongaro.
The Agency’s Steven Chen expects it to top the area’s $14 million record set in Middle Dural by COVID test supplier Gavin Grace, given the Estephans’ plans to downsize locally.
Savvy buyer
The apartment in the Alex Popov-designed Grantham building previously sold at the peak of the boom in 2022 for $10 million.Credit: Domain
High-profile lawyer Chris Coudounaris and his wife Antonia have emerged as the savvy $8.3 million buyers into Potts Point’s Grantham building.
Chris Coudounaris recently sold his long-held Bellevue Hill home for $15 million.Credit: Edwina Pickles
Their purchase in the Alex Popov-designed landmark through TRG’s Gavin Rubinstein was $1.7 million less than it had sold for 18 months earlier.
Coudounaris, a former chairman of electronics retailer Strathfield and an associate of Paul Keating, sold his nearby Victorian terrace for $10.6 million last year to Susan Lane, wife of former Perpetual chief executive in the Americas David Lane.
Quick flips
Peter Horwitz is selling his sub-penthouse in the newly built Kurraba Residences.Credit: Domain
Less than a year after prominent racehorse owner and breeder Peter Horwitz purchased an apartment in waterfront development Kurraba Residences for $8.45 million, it has returned to the market with an $8 million guide.
The three-bedroom spread in the SJB Architects-designed building on Kurraba Point was purchased as a downsize from his $12.5 million Mosman house. Ray White Mosman’s Geoff Smith has the listing.
Pittwater life
On the northern beaches, the Louise Nettleton-designed Pittwater House has settled to its new $13.125 million buyers. Step forward Jillian Gower, wife of former Goldman Sachs partner and now co-founder of investment firm Beckon Capital Philip Moffitt.
The Pittwater residence designed by architect Louise Nettleton for Michael Price sold for $13.125 million.Credit: Domain
The Gower-Moffitts have previously shown a penchant for landmark designer houses. Their former home was the distinctive round, modernist house known as Oculus in Bellevue Hill, designed by 1960s architect Frank Fox and remodelled by Tzannes Associates. They sold it in 2021 for $13.6 million.
Phil Moffitt is the co-founder of the social impact fund Beckon Capital.Credit: LOUIE DOUVIS
The couple’s newly purchased waterfront house was sold by McGrath’s James Baker on behalf of former Macquarie Bank director Michael Price, who has long since moved to Potts Point, where in 2020, he bought a semi from Mark Ainsworth of the billionaire pokie clan.
At the same time as Pittwater House was hitting the market, Baker had also listed another waterfront house in nearby Newport with a similar $13 million to $14 million guide on behalf of Viper Capital co-founder Simon White.
There is no settlement yet to reveal the sale price of the architect Rowan Stewart-designed house, but word is out it was purchased as a matrimonial home for Dax Bykerk of the Baku swimwear label and his wife, Renee. The Bykerks will be coming to Pittwater cashed up from the $11.2 million sale of their Bondi Beach home.
The Newport house last traded in 2020 when sold by vitamin mogul Marcus Blackmore for $8.125 million.