Competing Bids: sale price undisclosed as Riviera retreat offloaded by Double Bay couple Basil Sellers and wife Clare

Cuccia Noya, one of the world’s most photographed houses given its exposed but idyllic French Riviera location, has been sold by a Double Bay-based couple.

Cuccia Noya, set above Paloma Beach on the ‘bay of billionaires’ in the French Riviera, has been sold by Basil Sellers and his wife Clare.

Cuccia Noya, one of the world’s most photographed houses given its exposed but idyllic French Riviera location, has been sold by the Double Bay-based businessman and philanthropist Basil Sellers and his wife, Clare.

Their alluring St Jean Cap Ferrat trophy home last traded in 1993 when they paid around $17.5m. They had bought it from the late business tycoon John Elliott, who had paid $13m in 1987, just before proposing to his second wife, Amanda Drummond Moray at the romantic setting.

The home, set above popular Paloma Beach on what’s become known as the bay of billionaires, had been quietly listed two years ago, having been briefly offered in 2009 at $130m. The sale is understood to include the prestigious wine cellar contents and valuable art works. Sellers loves his wine and the Fauves art movement, securing a Fernand Leger mosaic from 1935, the year he was born. It was included in the offering since it weighs a couple of tonnes.

Cuccia Noya, in the distance above the beach.

The recent asking price, sale price and new owner are unknown, with settlement details not expected until 2022, when the fate of the model elephant sculptures in the gardens will also become known.

Prestige sales have been sparse in recent years after an orgy of oligarchs, mostly spendthrift Europeans, bought up, repeating the spree of the late 19th-century White Russians.

The last big sale was in 2019 when $320m was secured by the Italian distiller Davide Campari-Milano, which sold the historic Villa Les Cedres to Rinat Akhmetov, Ukraine’s richest man. The villa on 14 hectares had been among the longtime assets of the Grand Marnier Group, which the Marnier family offloaded to the Italians in 2016.

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Millionaires’ row

Cuccia Noya, the six-bedroom villa on 1500sq m, is located next to Villa La Fadarello, the retreat of adman Lord Maurice Saatchi, and opposite La Chabanne where the former owner Lord Andrew Lloyd Webber allowed David and Victoria Beckham to honeymoon.

Mansions on the peninsula include Maryland, the former retreat of the late Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen.

Cuccia Noya’s street, Chemin de Saint-Hospice, has regularly been ranked in the world’s 10 priciest streets given its location on the Mediterranean Sea. Paloma Beach was on the Australian paparazzi radar as a pre-wedding party location for the 2007 marriage of James Packer with Erica Baxter, attended by actor Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes. It was also a setting in the film 50 Shades of Grey.

Until the pandemic lockdown, the Sellers had hosted dozens of friends visiting the south of France over the 28 years, including SirRoden Cutler and Lady (Joan) Cutler, champion footballer Kevin Sheedy and winemaker Len Evans.

A regular was the Coogee-based cricket commentator Richie Benaud who spent his holidays across the bay in the seaside town, Beaulieu-sur-Mer, where he could see Cuccia Noya from his apartment that’s been recently sold by his widow, Daphne.

Sellers’ biography suggested the family and guests would drink between 30 and 35 cases of great wine from its two airconditioned cellars every year.

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Villa visitors

The Sellers had periodically previously stayed at the villa as guests. They’d moved to London where he was managing director of AFP Group, the aggressive investment company chaired by John Gerahty which was heavily leveraged to Elders IXL shares. Sellers, who spent his early years in Adelaide, oversaw AFP’s acquisition of Gestetner Holdings, the office supplies distributor.

Cuccia Noya was Elliott’s retreat from his South Yarra jam factory headquarters. It was the era when antipodean tycoons including Christopher Skase, Alan Bond and Kerry Packer were riding high. As Dame Edna Everage noted, high-powered Australian scallywags ventured overseas, invariably buying polo teams, Hollywood film studios, English villages, penthouses, breweries and Van Goghs. And as Edna added, sometimes not with their own money.

After Cuccia Noya’s sale to Sellers, Elliott briefly relocated to La Tour Passerine, a secluded hillside property in the same well-heeled street.

It was former Sydney stockbroker Kim Oxenham who had tipped off Sellers that Cuccia Noya was for sale, after having a breakfast catch-up with Elliott in Monaco. Elliott was in the late stages of the house sale, with Elliott urging any deal would have to happen almost immediately. Its settlement took place just two days later.

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Rich history

Australians have owned on the peninsula since Lady (Enid) Kenmare, from the Lindeman wine family, took up at La Fiorentina in 1939, following her third marriage to shipbuilder Lord Marmaduke Furness.

The advertising executive Mary Wells Lawrence and her husband Harding Lawrence, president of Braniff International Airlines, purchased the villa from Kenmare in 1969.

Expatriate financier Andrew Ipkendanz was a member of the low-key ownership club for about a decade following his late 1990s purchase. His villa, Carpe Diem, was bought after bonuses from Credit Suisse First Boston which had been, for a time, the only foreign bank in Russia.

The currency trader Ivan Ritossa still flies the expatriate flag, owning L’Aniram du Cap, which actor Nicole Kidman has rented.

Byron beauty

With the long weekend seeing reduced Sydney sales activity, NSW’s priciest auction listing saw a $5.05m sale in the Byron Bay hinterland. It was Sunnyview, a four-bedroom house on 16ha at Coorabell, sold by estate agent Tim Miller.

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Brighton shines

The top weekend result in Melbourne was $3.95m in Brighton when six bidders competed for the 29 North Rd knockdown. It was announced on the market by Buxton agent Stefan Whiting at $3.6m. The guide had been $3.2m to $3.5m for the four-bedroom, one-bathroom home on its 725sq m holding.

There appears to be a preference for midweek Zoom auctions, which saw Melbourne’s priciest auction result when $6.8m was paid in Malvern East last Thursday evening. It was for the five-bedroom, three-bathroom 1915 Edwardian home at 19 Glenbrook Ave through Marshall White, who’d given a $6m to $6.6m price guide. It was announced on the market at $6.8m. There had been almost 15,000 views on realestate.com.au during its marketing. The home had last sold at $3.82m in 2008, at $2.2m in 2002 and at $201,000 in 1984.

Cairns classic

The former singer turned music industry entrepreneur Gene Pierson has listed his far north Queensland retreat. The Bellenden Ker holding, known as the Misty Mountains Estate, is a home and resort business south of Cairns.

Seeking offers over $7m, the 55ha property comes with a homestead that took 10 years to construct. It is full of custom detailing including hand-cut fossilised pink Dreamtime granite exterior walls.

It’s been listed by Barbara Wolveridge at Sotheby’s International Port Douglas.

There is a large open lawn to accommodate helicopters.