Quentin Dempster and wife to retreat to Tasmania after Millers Point sale

Longtime ABC stalwart Quentin Dempster and his wife Elizabeth O’Brien accepted an auction eve offer for their luxury Millers Point terrace.

Winsbury Terrace is set in the now gentrified harbourside precinct that was saved in the 1970s by the campaign of union leader Jack Mundey.

Longtime ABC stalwart Quentin Dempster and his wife Elizabeth O’Brien have accepted an auction eve offer for their luxury Millers Point terrace on Friday night. Given its Sydney Harbour views, they held $6m hopes ahead of Saturday’s scheduled auction for their grand 1870s Victorian Italianate terrace.

Winsbury Terrace is set in the now gentrified harbourside precinct that was saved in the 1970s by the campaign of union leader Jack Mundey, who led the green bans movement.

The four-level terrace fetched an undisclosed price through McGrath agent Andrew Stewart who’d sold it to the couple for $1.5m in 2010, as part of the NSW government’s then contentious sell-off of hundreds of public housing abodes.

Housing NSW became the landlord in the 1980s when the properties were handed over by the Maritime Service Board.

“If you come into this area, please share our commitment to the heritage legacy of Millers Point and The Rocks,” Dempster, the pugnacious former Stateline and 7.30 Report presenter, insisted, while marketing the house which attracted 56 inspections.

The couple intend spending more time at their retreat in Tasmania, The Winged House, which since being designed by architect Richard Goodwin in 2008 has been a popular $2700-a-week holiday rental.

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Journos cash in

Two doyennes of journalism have been seeking buyers in their respective capital cities.

Kate Legge in Melbourne and Pamela Williams in Sydney have each independently decided it was the right time to downsize. Both have retired in recent times from their acclaimed professional endeavours to hopefully write more books.

The 1920s home in Malvern East.

Legge is seeking $4.95m in Malvern East for her four bedroom, two bathroom 1920s home.

It is being marketed as one of a handful of houses in the Gascoigne Estate with uninterrupted views of Central Park by its Jellis Craig listing agent Andrew McCann. The home comes with ornate post-Edwardian elements including strapped ceilings, leadlight windows and wainscoting. It last traded in 2001 at $1,021,000 when bought with Legge’s then husband and publisher of The Age newspaper, Greg Hywood.

Legge’s book credits include the 2019 tome, Kindred: A Cradle Mountain Love Story about Tasmanian eco tourism pioneers Gustav Weindorfer and Kate Cowle, who built at Cradle Mountain more than a century ago. And next February, Thames & Hudson publishes her much awaited book, Infidelity and Other Affairs.

Williams, another former colleague at The Australian, has just sold her two-level Potts Point penthouse through Laing Real Estate agent Anthony Birdsall.

The rooftop garden at Potts Point.

It comes with 510 sqm space including one of the largest landscaped rooftop gardens in the neighbourhood which was installed by Space Designs’ Jason Elboz. The six-time Walkley Award winner will downsize locally while spending most of her time at her Illawarra coastal retreat.

Both Legge and Williams made their names as journalists covering industrial relations in the early 1980s as the Hawke government implemented its prices and incomes accord.

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Toorak tops list

The nation’s dearest auction listing sale over the last week was a charming home on Ottawa Rd, Toorak, that fetched a reputed $13,225,000. The 1930s English- style cul-de-sac residence comes with a second frontage on Huntingfield Road.

The four-bedroom house, with bookshelf-lined turret, was sold by executers of the estate of the late philanthropic couple, social researcher Geraldine Lazarus and her husband, Greig Gailey, who served on the board of Victoria Opera. They bought it from John Karkar for $2m in 2002.

This Toorak mansion fetched a reputed $13,225,000.

Melbourne auction activity held above 1000 for the fifth consecutive week, with 1020 homes taken to auction last week. Given the late selling season heightened volumes, and buyer caution after eight interest rates rises, of the 832 results collected so far by CoreLogic, 57 per cent were sold, the lowest preliminary clearance rate since July.

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Under the hammer

Across Sydney, 799 homes went under the hammer last week, with a 57 per cent preliminary clearance rate, the lowest since August. Sydney’s withdrawal rate jumped to 23 per cent, its highest since July, so unsold stock levels will be high should vendors persist in the hope of a sale.

Just as Kirribilli sees off its jacaranda season, the lower north shore suburb saw the midweek sale of the whole floor harbourfront apartment of the late philanthropist Martin Dickson for $9.8m. The price guide from selling agent Dave Gillan had been $10m for the whole fourth floor apartment overlooking Careening Cove.

Long before the term empty nester was conceived, the large apartment cost $665,000 in 1984 when bought by Dickson, a McIlrath Stores heir, in what was developer Sid Londish’s pioneering prestige low-rise apartment project, Elamang.

Londish had unsuccessfully sought development of high rises in Woolloomooloo, in his joint initiative with the Moscow Narodny Bank, which came unstuck amid green bans and the 1970s recession.

The Weekend Australian’s Legge wrote of Londish three years before his 2018 death in a feature on nonagenarians who were living life to the max, describing him as “tall, with a weathered countenance, gold-rimmed glasses, combed furrows of white hair and a cautious gait, his appearance belies an indefatigable zest for the next big wave.” He was endeavouring to create a better lifestyle for elderly Australians with his concept in aged living resorts.

The tightly-held Elamang Avenue Kirribilli complex also saw the sale of the second floor apartment belonging to the Taubman paints family on the same day.

There’s been no price disclosure from John Conroy of Sotheby’s International, but there had been pre-auction $12m-plus speculation given its came with a deepwater berth.

The 300sqm apartment of the late Peter Taubman had been traded at $7.5m in 2007, having been initially bought off the plan in 1982 for $850,000 by the late yachtsman Warren Johns and wife, Joan.

Taubmans has just celebrated its 125th year, becoming one of Australia’s biggest companies in the 1960s, with the brand acquired by US group PPG Industries in 2007.

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Auctions decline

Anne-Flaherty, the PropTrack economist, calculated 505 scheduled auctions this week, with then just the six between during Christmas and the New Year holiday period.

With 55 per cent of the 1800 national results last week reporting a sale, CoreLogic calculated the combined capitals’ preliminary clearance rate had dipped to its weakest since July. Adelaide, at 65 per cent, continued to be the strongest market, while Brisbane had its lowest rate of the year at 34 per cent.

CoreLogic calculated 103,898 capital city auctions were conducted in 2022, 15 per cent below the record 122,091 in 2021, but 10 per cent above the annual average number over the previous five years.