Pratts given planning approval for $9.5m upgrade of Kew mansion

The Pratt family’s historic ­Raheen mansion in Kew.

Generational shift is underway at the Pratt family’s historic ­Raheen mansion in Kew as billionaire Anthony Pratt and his partner Claudine Revere prepare to spend more time in Australia.

And as would be expected of one of our richest families, the renovation plans for the 19th century Italianate mansion are expansive.

Anthony Pratt and Claudine Revere with the Melbourne Cup. Picture: Stuart McEvoy/The Australian.

The Pratts have been given planning approval for an estimated $9.5 million of work on the Kew mansion — so a bit more than a granny flat then.

The Pratt family’s Raheen mansion in Kew.

They have just applied to have those designs amended. The work details are private — but as this client is worth $10.35 billion, we doubt it will be to ­reduce the scope of the project.

Pratt’s late father, billionaire box king Richard Pratt and his wife Jeanne bought the 19th century mansion from the Catholic Church in 1981.

The latest work follows an earlier extensive renovation of Raheen by Jeanne and Dick, which included changes to the house and gardens, plus the addition of a new wing designed by renowned Australian architect Glenn Murcutt.

Matriarch Jeanne still calls the mansion home. But she now shares it with Anthony and his family when they are in town from their other base in the ­United States.

Those periods of dual occupancy will become much more frequent after the couple’s decision to educate their children in Australia.

The Pratts recently sold Villa Juanita, their palatial mansion outside the US city of Atlanta, for about $10m. They have retained the family’s New York apartment in the prestigious Sherry-Netherland building, which overlooks Central Park — a handy base for doing business in the US.

Pratt, who led Visy’s hugely successful US expansion and, incidentally, is a big fan of Wesley Snipes’ Passenger 57, has had a notably bigger presence locally this year.

This week he and Revere, who runs a successful catering business in New York, enjoyed proceedings in the birdcage and then up in the VRC committee room at Flemington for the Melbourne Cup on Tuesday.

And earlier this year Pratt was a high-profile attendee at the Liberal Party’s election night function at Sydney’s Sofitel Wentworth. It’s good to have them back.

Tough gig with Rudd

Pack your Samsonite and put on your hard hat: the president of the Asia Society Policy Institute, Kevin Rudd, is after a new assistant.

It’s an exciting New York-based opportunity for a brave, go-getter with three-to-four years work experience.

Rudd was appointed to run the global non-profit back in late 2014. It was a handy launch pad for his tilt at the United Nations top job.

As Malcolm Turnbull was reminded this week, that thwarted dream — and the lack of local support for the two-time PM — is still raw for Rudd.

The successful assistant to Kevin 747 will have to travel extensively — “with little notice”, just like in his prime ministerial days.

They will also need to draft talking points and speeches. As “those dickheads” at DFAT learned back in the day. (“Just f. king hopeless,” was Rudd’s infamous verdict.) Applicants should keep those sentences simple. He’s a tough marker.

Gina’s equine link

Hancock Prospecting billionaire Gina Rinehart doesn’t gamble, but she does have a major horse racing connection.

Gina Rinehart at the Melbourne Cup. Picture: Christian Gilles.

Her grandfather James Nicholas was a racing horse owner of great success — in England, Singapore and Australia.

In 1919, his horse Ian ’Or won the Sydney Cup, as his proud granddaughter Gina explained at Flemington.

But, despite the best efforts of trainers on Tuesday, Rinehart said she has no plans to follow her grandfather into the nags.

Not that she hasn’t been walking his footsteps of late.

Nicholas was one of the biggest pastoralists in Western Australia.

Among other properties, he owned cattle stations in partnership with Sir Sidney Kidman — a significant emotional connection for Rinehart’s bid of the S. Kidman & Co empire, which was last week increased to a winning $386.5m.

Nick ‘dances in dark’

Crutches were never going to hold back Nick Williams, the son of millionaire Melbourne Cup winner Almandin’s owner Lloyd Williams, from celebrations in the wake of the family’s historic fifth win of Australia’s richest horse race.

Lloyd Williams with his fifth Melbourne Cup. Picture: Wayne Ludbey.

The younger Williams was hobbling about Flemington on Tuesday with the aid of crutches, having dislocated his knee some days earlier.

The next generation property developer and horse owner was telling those who inquired on his injury that he’d taken a spill after mis-stepping.

But his good friend and music producer Michael Gudinski, who with his wife Sue is also part of the syndicate that owns the Cup winner, tells a different story.

“My best mate outside the music business is Nick Williams,” said Gudinski, who was on board billionaire Lindsay Fox’s conception party Mediterranean booze cruise earlier this year with Nick and his wife Saskia Williams.

But what about that knee?

“He was dancing in the dark, as Bruce Springsteen would say,” Gudinski told us.

Crowning glory

It was a triumphant entry to Crown’s Palladium ballroom yesterday by Lloyd Williams’ daughter-in-law Saskia Williams and her friend Fran Ingham, wife of John Ingham, also part owners of Tuesday’s Melbourne Cup winner.

Peta Credlin. Picture: Julie Kiriacoudis.

The ladies were brandishing their trophy high after a night of heavy partying at James Packer’s Crown casino. The location was fitting, with Lloyd Williams a close friend of James’s late father Kerry Packer. Williams, 76, was co-executor of the billionaire’s will after he died a decade ago and remains a trusted adviser to Packer.

They were back at the gambling den for lunch with 1500 other dolled-up fillies at the Victorian Racing Club’s annual Oaks ladies lunch.

Packer’s newest recruit to his private Consolidated Press stable, Peta Credlin, was an early solo arrival, stunning in hot pink (while her Liberal powerbroker husband Brian Loughnane was across town, on business at 101 Collins Street, Melbourne’s corporate tower of power).

VRC vice-chair Amanda Elliott was also in the ladies lunch crowd, as was Crown’s Ann Peacock, whose late mother Susan Renouf was a winner of the Cup in 1980 with her then husband Robert Sangster with Beldale Ball, and Sophie Sangster, who is married to Robert’s son Adam Sangster, who owns Swettenham Stud.

Just arrived from Sydney, Skye Leckie, wife of former Seven boss David Leckie, was a fashionably late arrival, while Myer’s Jennifer Hawkins was a surprise guest, running a softer look in pale blue compared with the red pantsuit the model donned for Cup day.