Richest 250: How the wealthy unwind: billiards, cycling up hills and some property collecting
It’s not all work for the big players on The List: The Richest 250. They wind down in various ways, from the sporty to the leisurely – or just collecting ritzy houses.
The wealthy can be secretive about many things, but they don’t hold back when it comes to sharing their hobbies and sports.
Take keen billiards player and multi-billionaire real estate developer Harry Triguboff. At 89 years of age, he readily confesses: “I should be a champion at billiards because I have been playing for 80 years.”
“But I am not good at sports. It doesn’t matter; I like it. That is the main thing. I like it because it takes my mind off everything,” says the apartment king, who bolsters the skylines of Sydney and the Gold Coast by around 3000 apartments a year and is personally worth about $20.81 billion on The List this year.
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After a day of crossing swords with local councils, contemplating the acquisition of more sites and reviewing plans for his next apartment tower, Triguboff returns home from his Sydney city offices to his eastern suburbs waterfront mansion and attempts to sink a few holes in his full-sized billiard table every night.
Perhaps his game would improve if he were to play with a friend?
“The problem with somebody else playing is that I am half-drunk so I am not as good as I normally am,” says Triguboff with a laugh.
Triguboff started playing billiards in China after his father, Moshe, bought him a small billiard table when he was a child. “It was in the attic and I always used to play with it,” says the hard man of Australian property.
He adds that 15 years ago he returned to the old Triguboff house in the Chinese city of Tianjin, noting that the structure is still one of the best in the city, to which he and his family were forced to flee after World War II.
But not everyone can boast of such an exotic beginning. A child of the Gold Coast, billionaire Clive Palmer certainly doesn’t brag about growing up there, but these days the mining magnate and political player has a penchant for collecting ritzy houses. Specifically, waterfront homes in southeast Queensland, using his own cash.
“I don’t collect real estate really,” says Palmer, who is putting about $100m into his United Australia Party in the upcoming federal election. “But any house my wife likes, I like. Happy wife is a happy life.” He would not be drawn on exactly how many flashy Gold Coast homes he owns, though there are dozens in his and his family’s names.
Perhaps he has lost count?
“It just evolves; I am 67 years old and I am just responding to normal [real estate] trends,” he reckons.
Palmer, who earns around $630m a year from mining royalties, says he has an affinity for the Gold Coast. Explaining the need to buy multiple residential properties, he divulges that a lot of them are used to house his relatives.
“I have a big family; my wife is Bulgarian she also has a big family. So they are all living in the houses, both my wife’s family and my family,” he says.
The residential houses are his own personal bailiwick, while the rural properties he amasses are tied up with his mining operations and his golf courses are independently owned. “The other things [the houses] are my personal investments,” he says.
Meanwhile, on Victoria’s Mornington Peninsula, property developer Max Beck, 80, takes a more pragmatic approach to his sport than other members of The List.
“I have been a runner, a sailor of couta boats, and I took up riding when my legs started to ache from running in my early 50s. I thought if I continued I would end up with knee replacements. I am a great advocate of riding because there is no impact,’’ Beck says, adding that he believes the health benefits of bike riding are amazing.
“I broke my knee cap, I smashed my knee cap, and the doctor said you will be riding in six weeks; if you weren’t a rider you would be out for six months. Bike riding has no impact at all.”
“I have a lot of mates who need to stop eating and get on the bike. About 80 per cent of my mates have got to stop eating. I say, listen, if you want to live longer get on the bike.”
At present Beck has four or five bikes, which cost around $15,000 to $20,000 apiece, including one presented to him by friend Gerry Ryan, who owns the professional Bike Exchange-Jayco team that has won Tour de France stages.
But it wasn’t always plain sailing, with Beck admitting that he was “scared shitless” of cars when he first started riding. Since then there has been no holding back for Beck, who is building 2000 units in Melbourne’s Caulfield and is partnering with the Fox family at the giant Essendon Airport project.
Bike riding is his favourite pastime by a mile. “I go for a ride for two to three hours and have a shower and feel about 25 years old; I was 80 recently … that’s bike riding. Whereas I come home from golf and [if] I have missed all these putts I feel shithouse.”
“I think the riding on the Mornington Peninsula is world class … we call it the four beach rides: Sorrento Beach, Portsea Back Beach and London Bridge, and then the Heads.
“I have been around the world 40 times and I have never found anywhere better than Sorrento.”
The 2022 edition of The List – Australia’s Richest 250 is published on Friday in The Australian.