Hewitts sell their Toorak pile: tennis champ Lleyton and his wife have moved north

A Toorak mansion sold by tennis commentator and former star player Lleyton and TV personality Bec Hewitt as they shifted to the Gold Coast has just settled for $15.2m.

Bec and Leyton Hewitt’s former Melbourne home at Heyington Place, Toorak.

The top end of the housing market is showing no signs of slowing around the nation with the exodus from Melbourne to Queensland playing a part in one of the biggest recent sales.

A Toorak mansion sold by tennis commentator and former star player Lleyton and TV personality Bec Hewitt as they shifted to a Burleigh Heads home on the Gold Coast has just settled for $15.2m. While much of the more recent action has been in Melbourne’s summer playground of Portsea the sale shows that Toorak still has its blue-chip status.

The Toorak home’s buyer, according to documents lodged on the title, was a company linked to Victory Offices chief executive Dan Baxter. While the listed office space company found the Covid-19 pandemic tough going he has extensive interest in other industries. Mr Baxter also led Victory Aluminium to become one of the largest exporters of aluminium from Australia.

The purchase is another sign that the top end will hold up even as interest rate rises threaten to impinge on middle range home prices. The Hewitts last December settled on a $4.305m purchase in Gold Coast suburb Burleigh Heads.

Jellis Craig Stonnington listing agent Phillip French declined to comment on the sale of the Heyington Place home in Toorak

The mansion drew buyers globally, as well as those from affluent Melbourne suburbs who were keen to upgrade.

The Hewitts had created a home with generous living spaces across the five-bedroom and seven-bathroom residence, which includes a pool, cellar and home theatre.

The sale of the French-inspired home came as no surprise to buyers agent David Morrell who said that there were legions of buyers chasing properties this summer who were at the ready but they met with fewer sellers.

Most wanted coastal properties to suit their lifestyles. “The rarities that did transact often went a million over reserve,” he said.

Mr Morrell said that December had marked the busiest period at the top end in 20 years. “Mansions shooting off the shelves faster than loo paper in lockdown,” he said. He is dismissive about talk of a looming market crash. “There’s just not enough of the good stuff to go around and that’s likely to remain so in the immediate future,” he said.

Just last weekend at one Toorak home more than 30 groups were forming a queue even before the agent showed up.

“That is not a signal of a looming crash,” he said.

The demand is playing with the sale of other homes. Just last month The Grange sold in Toorak after hitting the market with an asking price of $22m-$24m. The Grange Road home was sold via Abercromby’s Real Estate’s Sam Goddard and Jock Langley.

The 2019 mansion by architect Christopher Doyle has a ground floor level that includes a state-of the-art kitchen with imported Calacatta marble surfaces, Gaggenau appliances and a butler’s pantry. Outside there is Jack Merlo landscaping surrounding a terrace entertaining area, a swimming pool, an alfresco kitchen and pool house.

The mansion has nine bedrooms, each with a private ensuite, and it features a main suite with French silk wallpaper, accompanied by a series of rooms including a welcoming retreat, music room, office or library.

The lower ground level, also accessed by the lift, sports a 12-seat cinema with a star feature ceiling, a gym, temperature-controlled wine cellar, abundant storage and garaging for six cars.

More sales in the area are set to come to light as the brisk -re-Easter trading market gets underway and there is every sign that the tightly-held area will remain a prestige housing favourite. A Toorak mansion broke an Australian auction record in October when the Lansell Road home sold for more than $40m.

Documents showed that the vendors were the Healey family.