Toorak beauty changes hands and Downer sells family pile

Cloyne, the glamorous 1920s Toorak residences, has been sold again and the Downer country estate has been sold.

Martinsell, the Downer family’s stately Barossa country estate, has sold for $1.9m.

Cloyne, the most glamorous of 1920s Toorak residences, has been sold again. It’s been bought by emerging childcare centre entrepreneur Darren Misquitta, who co-founded Oxanda Education. The property will be home to wife Karina and the couple’s two young children, who have been living at Altona. The Harold Desbrowe-Annear-designed house, with prominent porte cochere on its Toorak Road frontage, last sold for $3.8 million in 2014 to a Chinese businessman, and before that in 2011 for $3.5m. No price has yet emerged after the Sotheby’s International sale. Cloyne has a fascinating past after being built for Louis Nelken, reputedly a former royal family butler who married into the establishment Baillieu family. They left Cloyne with a swell party in 1955 attended by establishment families the Horderns, Myers, Manifolds, Chirnsides, and even the Dekyveres from Sydney. The swinging 1960s saw Coyne owned by playboy Don Busch, who died in 1970 in a Mustang plane crash at Bendigo.

Pizza supremo upsizes

Pizza maker Don Meij has upsized Brisbane homes. Following the $3.125m sale in Clayfield, the Domino’s Pizza head secured the former matrimonial home of Fone Zone co-founders David McMahon and Maxine Horne in Ascot. Meij paid $8.615m for the Hamptons-inspired home. McMahon and Horne, who had paid $7.25m in 2009, have also recently sold their Mermaid Beach weekender to former Hockeyroo Louise Dobson for $4.75m.

Downer sells family pile

Martinsell, the stately Barossa country estate owned by the Downer political dynasty, has been sold to Peter and Marijan Bulley. The property had sometimes been referred to as Downer Manor. It was the home of Downer’s late parents Lady Mary and Sir Alick, and listed following Lady Downer’s death in 2014. Oren Klemich of Klemich Real Estate secured $1.9m after having expectations of about $2m. The 1901 home, one of the Barossa’s grandest, comes with five hectares of sauvignon blanc grapes.

Stockpicker buys in Gold Coast

Leading stockpicker Mark East has turned his investment attention to property, splashing out $2.73m on the Gold Coast to secure a newly refurbished three bedroom, three bathroom home at Currumbin following trips to the holiday hot spot. The near beachfront house was sold by Ray White Mermaid Beach agent Troy Dowker, who advertised it as a holiday rental market prospect of $1300 a week.

Brighton bathing box listed

So, OK, it’s not a trophy home, but another bathing box on Brighton’s foreshore has been listed for sale. It is bathing box 44 up for May 28 auction through hockingstuart. The last sale secured a record $285,000, and this time more than $275,000 is tipped for Noel Williams, who headed Guestime Foods. Only Bayside City Council residents are eligible to own a Dendy Beach box.