Australia’s Richest 250 #213: Jerry Schwartz

Jerry Schwartz is building a mausoleum in his $67m mansion.

Jerry Schwartz. Picture: Nic Walker.

Hotel mogul, cosmetic surgeon and keen swimmer Jerry Schwartz has been busy in the year since he forked out a handsome $67.25 million for his harbourfront mansion in Sydney’s Vaucluse, buying it for its 25m pool – the largest private swimming hole on the harbour.

Schwartz, who has a $468 million fortune, is taking the wrecking ball to the grandiose, Gone with the Wind-style estate, Phoenix Acres. The good doctor is forking out up to $5 million for renovations, adding three internal lifts connected via a series of subterranean tunnels that will link the street all the way down to the exclusive waters of Parsley Bay, which lap his boathouse and private jetty.

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He is also hell bent on raising the level of the tennis court to make way for a home cinema, six-bay garage and storage.

Schwartz is confident that his investment in the six-bedroom and six-bathroom deep waterfront, replete with poolside his-and-hers bathrooms and even a harbourside laundry, will pay off. That’s despite the fact he was compelled to stump up an additional $6 million in stamp duties to the NSW government upon acquiring it.

“Despite the perceived gloom in the general property market, Sydney prestige homes definitely have survived and remain very strongly priced,” says Schwartz, who with 14 hotels in NSW and Queensland is billed as Australia’s largest private owner of accommodation venues. “This is because of the limited stock of harbourside and other prestige homes.”

Schwartz is focused on converting Phoenix Acres and its stuffy décor into a more modern abode, and will carpet its beautiful parquet floors as part of the new interior design.

Under the stewardship of former owner CK Ow, chairman of Singapore’s Stamford Land, the house even had a Kipling Room – think a darkly wood-panelled retreat off the mansion’s main entrance that was presumably used as a library.

Schwartz, who is clearly thinking long term, is building an amalgamation of two dozen burial plots at Botany Cemetery at a cost of about $1 million. “I am also making my last house, which is the largest underground mausoleum in Australia,” he says. “I am excavating and putting a temple in there and putting a big round ball atop it.”

‘He plans to move his late parents, Bela and Eva, to the mausoleum upon its completion by Halloween, October 31, adding that he will hold a big party on site.’

He plans to move his late parents, Bela and Eva, to the mausoleum upon its completion by Halloween, October 31, adding that he will hold a big party on site.

“Debbie [his wife] says I am so morbid,” he quips.  

Back at Vaucluse, Schwartz, who owns the Sofitel hotel in Sydney’s Darling Harbour and the Hilton on the Gold Coast (which he just picked up for $70 million), plans to install a series of fresh-water fish tanks filled with orange koi carp as decorative enhancements to the subterranean tunnels.

Installing fresh-water fish tanks and private lifts has become something of an interior design theme for the doctor. One of his previous houses, also in Vaucluse, featured a fish tank under the clear glasss lounge room floor, as well as a three-level lift.

CK Ow, on the other hand, has a penchant for installing private pubs in his properties, as evidenced by the large drinking chamber and cellar leading out onto one of Phoenix Acres’ many expanses overlooking the harbour. “There was a pub in this house – that was CK’s landmark, like mine is installing fish tanks,” Schwartz says.

Phoenix Acres’ kitchen will be enlarged with the addition of a pantry created from the demolition of two rooms previously used as servant’s quarters.

“CK used to bring his Malaysian servants to stay here … usually about six days a year,” Schwartz says. “We don’t really want servants living in here. We are just normal mortals.”

The pool area will be enhanced with a new pagoda and another level on top, capped by a grass garden extended into the hill.

Jerry and Debbie met more than nine years ago, and together with their son and twin daughters, have moved house three times. Schwartz says Debbie wanted the house, while he was attracted to Phoenix Acres because of its pool. 

A daily swimmer, he does 20 freestyle laps each morning, taking up to 20 minutes, and also likes to splash about in the waters lapping Phoenix Acres. “I bought the house because it has so much water around it,” he says. “I love water. It’s got a pool, a wharf, its own little beach area. I can swim in the ocean – I do that daily to cool down.”

Schwartz swears that Phoenix Acres – which neighbours the waterfront estate of Johnny Kahlbetzer, son of German-born agribusiness baron John Dieter Khalbetzer – will be his last renovation. “I have made it clear to Debbie. I have told her many times that I am not going to undertake the work here unless you promise me this is our last house.” 

The renovation work is expected to take at least six months.

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