Price on the rise for top Potts Point penthouse Manar
Sydney Sotheby’s Maclay Longhurst initially gave $10m guidance for partially-gutted Potts Point penthouse Manar, but quickly upped it to $13.7m as negotiations got serious.
Sydney Sotheby’s recent star signing, Maclay Longhurst, had initially given $10m guidance for the partially gutted Manar, the Potts Point penthouse of one-time Bankers Trust operative Andrew Isles.
But Longhurst quickly upped it to $13.7m as mid-week price negotiations got serious, aided by renders of the plans by MHNDU and Lawless & Meyerson.
Its sale advisory has come 10 days into the marketing, weeks ahead of its scheduled May 22 auction.
Last weekend’s Sunday morning coffee cart, out the front of the Macleay St open-for-inspection, prompted a busy queue, with inspectees including property collector Bruce McWilliam, Spencer Simmons, the Laing + Simmons founder,and Michael Porter, the Skin Control entrepreneur.
Its Sydney City Council alterations and additions approval was costed at a conservative $353,060 in early 2020.
The offering comes with extra space bought from the body corporate for $508,000, giving a 307sq m total, including 63sq m terracing and an 11sq m lobby.
The original-condition penthouse did not find a $6m buyer when twice offered a few years back through local agent Jason Boon.
Isles and wife Victoria paid $2.25m when it was bought in 2009 from former lawyer Russell Keddie.
It traded at $325,000 in 1988 when bought from the family of the late Sydney lord mayor John Armstrong, a decade after the complex moved from company title to strata.
Music publisher David Davis Klippel converted the 1881 Manar home into a triplex around 1919.
Isles now runs the homewares and fashion wholesaler business, A. Royale & Co, which his late parents Daryl and Angela established in the early 1960s as a neck tie manufacturing outfit.
Isles is the grandson of SirElton Griffin, who stepped down as chief executive of Boral in 1973 after almost three decades running what had started out as Bitumen and Oil Refineries (Australia), apparently often sacking on the spot those who didn’t agree with his decisions.
“The word around Sydney was that an optimist was an executive who took his lunch into the Boral office,” Sir Eric Neal, his replacement, laughingly recalled when he gave some oral history to the J.D. Somerville collection in the State Library of South Australia. Neal stayed on until 1987, becoming an important mentor to the many in the industry, including Kerry Stokes whose son Ryan is now chairman of Boral as they await final acceptances in their privatisation bid.
Wahroonga wonder
Sydney recorded the highest capital city weekend preliminary clearance rate at 78 per cent, according to CoreLogic research director Tim Lawless.
Sydney’s priciest sale was a contemporary home at 23 Westbrook Ave, Wahroonga, which sold through Guido Scatizzi and Anna Chen at BresicWhitney for $9.1m.
The highly contested auction had three bidders place 19 bids for the home designed to be either a single house or two separate residences on its 2761sq m holding.
It came with $8m guidance.
Over 200 groups inspected. The home attracted more than 9000 page views on realestate.com.au during its marketing.
Jesmond unsold
Sydney’s top eastern suburbs listing – Jesmond, the 1888 Paddington terrace reimagined for contemporary living at 73 Brown St – failed to sell.
The Victorian terrace listing by Ben Collier at the ASX-listed The Agency attracted no bids.
Having given potential buyers $7.5m initial guidance, Collier placed a $8m vendor bid.
There’s a top floor home office with a CBD skyline vista at the home, which last sold in 2020 for $6.5m to Tindall Magnus, the managing director at Amplexa Consulting, and radiologist Sam McCormack.
Paddington did see a $4.68m sale on Glenview St. There were five bidders competing for the listing of Melinda Antellas at BresicWhitney, which was being offered to the market for the first time in 68 years.
Retaining its ornate timberwork and fireplaces, the Glenview St home came with a 6m frontage on its 228sq m block.
Antellas had given initial $3.8m guidance, which was upped to $4m.
Meanwhile Paddington’s lavish Brompton House is returning to market with a $14m guidance, again through Maclay Longhurst, after last June’s record-setting sale failed to eventuate.
Inspired by Versailles, Jacqueline Bailey and her daughter Lilly decorated the twin Glenmore Rd terraces over five years.
There is set to be imminent competition from a prior record setter on Windsor St.
$4.7m in Glen Iris
Melbourne’s top price was $4.77m when a 1960s brick residence at 9 Fairview Grove, Glen Iris was put to auction through Marshall White Stonnington agents Jason Brinkworth and Richard Mackinnon. There were four bidders.
They had given $4.1m to $4.5m for the four-bedroom, two-bathroom house on 1339sq m with tennis court and pool.
Glen Iris also saw the second highest result when three bidders competed for the 2014-built five-bedroom, three-bathroom home at 10 Grandview Ave, which sold through Belle Property agents Steve Burke and Yili Ma for $3.31m.
“Melburnians had an impromptu long weekend, leading to fewer auctions but still a strong overall market performance,”Marshall White auctioneer Jack Bongiorno advised. “The number of buyers out and about was high, and now that we are well and truly in the midst of the autumn market, activity has unquestionably intensified.
“Behind the scenes, off-market transactions have also been more prevalent than usual.”
PropTrack economist Anne Flaherty notes Melbourne’s weekly volume continues to rise, from 896 last week to more than 1150 and then 1170 over coming weeks, up more than 50 per cent on the same time last year.
The auctions include the Burwood East house of actor Bernard Curry and his wife Sonya, scheduled for May 11 auction with a $1.2m to $1.3m price guide through Stephen Le Get and Andrew Shen at Jellis Craig Whitehorse.
Tower of power sale
The Krongold family, original late 1970s off-the-plan buyers in Melbourne’s “tower of power” at 99 Spring St, have decided their time is up.
Kay & Burton Stonnington agents Monique Depierre and Peter Kudelka have the listing, which takes up the entire 20th floor. With nearly 400sq m of living space in the Moore & Hammond-designed complex, it is currently configured as two apartments.
Depierre has given a $5.9m to $6.3m indicative price for the four bedrooms with ensuites.
Another full floor with two bedrooms and two bathrooms hit the market recently with a $7.25m to $7.975m price guide.
Abercrombys agents Michael King and Jock Langley are taking offers.
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