His former home sold for $60m. Then he paid $30m for one that isn’t built

A penthouse in Elizabeth Bay’s boutique Billyard Ave development has sold for close to $30 million, smashing eastern suburbs records for a single apartment sale.

It’s a downsize, of sorts, for yachtie and former head of UBS Japan Matt Allen, the owner of Sydney to Hobart winning ocean racer Ichi Ban. Allen’s former home on the Darling Point waterfront sold last year for $60 million to medical entrepreneur Glenn Haifer.

It’s not waterfront, and it’s not even built yet, but that didn’t stop Matt Allen paying $30 million for the Elizabeth Bay penthouse.Credit: Domain

The penthouse is atop an SJB-designed building that has been developed by good friends Philippe Remond, of P3 Living, and Peter Walsh, from North East Corp, who conceived the project as house-like apartments with large balconies and harbour views aimed at the lucrative empty-nester market.

Allen, a four-time winner of the Sydney to Hobart yacht race, purchased the four-bedroom penthouse through Richardson & Wrench’s Jason Boon and Andrew Hoggett.

Boon has also sold one of the sub-penthouses for about $22 million and has offer and acceptance on a second sub-penthouse at the same price level.

Matt Allen is the owner of Sydney to Hobart winning ocean racer Ichi Ban.Credit:

Buyers would need to head to the CBD harbourfront to spend more for a single unit, where James Packer paid more than $72 million for his pad in Crown’s One Barangaroo tower.

Leura’s landmark offering

For more than a century the landmark Blue Mountains mansion Leuralla has remained in the hands of one family, despite a bitter family dispute in that time and having seen the doors closed on a toy and railway museum to which it was home for almost 40 years.

Leuralla was designed by architect Edward Hewlett Hogben in 1914 after the original house burnt down in 1904.Credit:

But the clock is ticking on the Andreas-Evatt family’s ownership after it hit the market on Friday for the first time since 1914 when the architect Edward Hewlett Hogben-designed residence was purchased by big-game fishing pioneer Harry Andreas for £280.

Since then, it has had a few notable incarnations: as the retreat of barrister and NSW Labor MP Clive Evatt, and later as the Leuralla Toy and Railway Museum thanks to Evatt’s son, the late defamation lawyer Clive Evatt and his wife, Elizabeth.

Art dealer and barrister Clive Evatt created the Leuralla Toy and Railway Museum in 1984. He died in 2018, aged 87.Credit: James Alcock

Fourth-generation owner Victor Evatt has owned it since 1984, but after his father died in 2018 there were a slew of legal actions among family members over the ownership that weren’t resolved until 2021.

Following the closure of the museum last year, the 2.2 hectare property is up for expressions of interest until December 14 through McGrath Double Bay’s Craig Pontey and Christie’s Darren Curtis.

Property juggling

As fashion designer Lesleigh Jermanus and her husband, retail veteran Chris Buchanan, push ahead with their controversial plans to turn one of Paddington’s oldest pubs into a boutique store, they also have their hands full buying two Byron Bay properties for almost $13 million.

The Byron Bay property of Priscilla Darcy at Wategos Beach sold for $6.9 million.Credit: Domain

One of the Wategos Beach houses is a five-bedroom residence known as Larimar sold by local agent Rez Tal for property consultant Priscilla Darcy, more than doubling the $3 million she paid for it in 2020 from local media boss Antony Catalano.

But Jermanus and Buchanan were interested in more than just one property locally, prompting Tal to approach next door’s owner, Catalano’s 32-year-old son Jordan Catalano and his wife, Jessica.

Alemais co-founder and creative director Lesleigh Jermanus has forked out almost $13 million on Byron Bay property.Credit:

Catalano is likely glad he opened the door to Tal because the house he purchased in 2021 for $3.55 million has sold for $6.035 million to Jermanus and Buchanan’s company Bowie Ferris Investments.

It is the same investment company that Jermanus and Buchanan used to buy the heritage-listed pub The Village Inn Paddington for $6.22 million last year as a store for Jermanus’ fashion label Alemais.

But locals were less keen, prompting more than 350 residents to protest against the pub’s closure. Woollahra Council’s Local Planning Panel agreed, rejecting the application to convert the pub into a boutique with co-working space upstairs.

Jermanus, who won for best emerging designer at last year’s Australian Fashion Laureate awards, and Buchanan are based in South Coogee, where earlier this year they paid $6 million for the home of baby goods entrepreneur Chloe Brookman and her husband, Charlie Wheeler.

Coppins is the landmark Walter Burley Griffin-designed residence in Pymble on 5640 square metres.Credit: Domain

Coppins it

Stuart Grimshaw was appointed chief of ASX-listed lender Humm earlier this year.Credit:

The historic Pymble estate Coppins, which was designed by architect Walter Burley Griffin in 1935, is being sold by former Bank of Queensland chief Stuart Grimshaw and his wife, Anneliese.

The sale comes soon after the Grimshaws undertook a lavish renovation of the six-bedroom residence they purchased in late 2020 for $13 million from Telstra senior executive David Burns and his wife, Edwina.

There are new floors, dramatic light fittings and a new kitchen, among other updates, but Ku-ring-gai Council took exception to some of the unauthorised works to the state heritage-listed residence.

The ensuing stoush made its way to the Land and Environment Court, which last month upheld orders that the Grimshaws reinstate key heritage features of the house, such as the original timber door at the entry, a sandstone fireplace and a windmill in the Marion Mahoney Griffin gardens.

Pello’s Alex Mintorn declined to offer a price guide or say if those rectification orders had been complied with yet. All will be apparent by next week’s first open inspection, he said.