The Sell: Beecroft finds premier tenant as Perrottet off to US
The four-bedroom Beecroft home of former NSW premier Dominic Perrottet, his wife Helen and their big family has been rented out within a week of being put up for lease.
NSW
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The four-bedroom Beecroft home of former NSW premier Dominic Perrottet, his wife Helen and their big family has been rented out within a week of being put up for lease.
The 2100sq m battleaxe Albert Road property was offered as a $1200-a-week rental through Stone property management agent Daniel Yao.
The house had been designed by Professor Leslie Wilkinson in the 1950s.
With 193sq m internal space, the family home sits within prime school catchments of Beecroft Public School (1.3km), Cheltenham Girls’ High School (2.6km) and Carlingford High School (4.3km). The property has an additional detached studio.
The rental listing arose after Perrottet quit state politics to relocate to the US with his wife Helen and seven children, where he will lead the mining giant BHP’s office in Washington DC.
Perrottet finished up in parliament in August, triggering an October 19 by-election for the seat of Epping, which the Liberals hold on a margin of about 4 per cent.
Being a reforming treasurer and premier, he had loved his 13 years on Maquarie Street but Perrottet, 41, said it was time to start a new chapter in his career.
He became premier after Gladys Berejiklian resigned amid a corruption scandal in late 2021 and he led the Coalition to its defeat to Labor’s Chris Minns in March last year.
He had been elected to parliament in 2011 after being a solicitor from northwest Sydney.
As treasurer, Perrottet will be remembered for pioneering the now-abandoned partial stamp duty reform, which was based on the state’s flawed valuations.
The couple secured approval for $550,000 alterations and additions to their heritage-listed home in April 2022, but the Delve Design has yet to be carried out to take it up to its desired 372sq m floor space.
The application involved construction of a double-storey eastern wing addition with a master bedroom and ensuite on the top floor. It also had a single-storey wing addition on its western side.
The house is a modest Leslie Wilkinson-designed residence constructed in 1953 for the Pym family amid a garden designed with the assistance of the local Swane family. It came with intact decor including its fireplace. There are high ornate ceilings and wooden floorboards throughout.
NADIA ALL SET TO SELL PADDO RENO SOON
Influencer Nadia Fairfax is set to say goodbye to her Vogue Living-featured Paddington terrace, just months after the birth of her daughter with her husband, financier Michael Wayne.
The couple have undertaken a colourful update to the five-bedroom, three-bathroom 1880s terrace, Cawdor, since their $4.05m purchase in 2020 from abstract painter Michael Johnson and his wife Margot.
The couple welcomed their daughter, Cordelia, in late 2023 after the extensive makeover to the Bent St house, which has traces of neo-classical Palladian and Georgian architectural styles.
Rival estate agents have been seeking the listing since she told Vogue in May that she was keen for her next renovation project. It is tipped the marketing campaign will kick off after her return from Turkey, where her social media posts show her on a shoot for luxury swimwear brand JETS Australia.
Fairfax loves the terrace location in “SoPa”, meaning south Paddington.
“Personally, I think it’s by far the top-ranking part of Paddo,” Fairfax said.
The neighbouring 1870 mansion, Glammis, recently sold for $10.75m to resources industry analyst Richard Saywell, having previously been transformed by architect Genevieve Lilley for Kokoda Property founder Mark Stevens.
Vogue wrote interior designer Tamsin Johnson had “ushered in lush textures and a courageous palette with an unbridled sense of fun” into Cawdor. The VL50-listed designer said the goal of the renovation was to reflect the couple’s personality.
“They are professional and balanced people, but also love a bit of fun,” she said.
“Nadia didn’t want the expected cream house with travertine and floorboards. She wanted to push the envelope and use as much colour as possible.”
It includes the kitchen bench and bar made from buttery slabs of yellow onyx, plus tangerine linen banquets.
NASSIF’S CHISWICK HOUSE MAY GO TO PAY DEBTS
The former Chiswick waterfront house of Toplace property developer Jean Nassif is mooted for listing by the administrators of his collapsed $2bn property empire.
The Chiswick house is located just along from the suburb’s top sale, which was $13.3m for a three-level house, designed using feng shui principles, on a 1575sq m Burns Crescent property in June.
Nassif, who failed to rectify poor quality Toplace apartment buildings before his flight to Lebanon, bought the 968sq m property with jetty for $4.9m in 2015 through McGrath Hunters Hill with Westpac finance.
The 2019-built home is registered just in his name, although the most recent dealing has been his wife Nisserine lodging a caveat claiming a stake in the property “by virtue of marriage”. It was Nissy who was the recipient of a $325,000 yellow Lamborghini, famously given as a gift on Valentine’s Day 2021 and which was transferred to an undisclosed party before the appointment of the Toplace administrators.
There are other claims on title, plus a mortgage to Toplace.
Four of the caveats are to companies: Bunnings Group, Saferway, Secured Lending 2 and Infrabuild Construction Solutions. There is also a caveat placed by Johnny Jreije arising from a claim over a 2021 loan agreement.
Administrators dVT Group, who examined Nassif’s accounts, have told creditors Nassif had “treated company bank accounts as his exclusive personal financial resources”.
Creditors have been told company funds covered the deposit for the Chiswick property, development costs and mortgage payments.
The investigation revealed that Nassif had borrowed $7,147,971 from the company.
The report also advised Nassif had transferred millions out of Toplace to Lebanon where he owns property in Beirut.
A warrant was issued in June 2023 for the arrest of Jean Khazen Nassif, after New South Wales police probed allegations of financial wrongdoing at his family business in a two-year investigation.
Toplace had its building licence cancelled in 2022 and Nassif was barred from running a building company for 10 years after a series of major defects were uncovered at developments.
The abandoned apartments in its Castle Hill tower complex will be completed, after a rescue deal was struck with ALAND this week.
Nissy is not accused of any wrongdoing.
SURF STAR TO WAVE GOODBYE TO RETREAT
Pro surfer Matt Wilkinson and his wife Anna have listed their Possum Creek property.
The couple, who live in Lennox Head, have owned the 8ha property for six years.
It comes with a six-bedroom, four-bathroom house and one-bedroom cottage, which are rented out as popular holiday retreats along with a restaurant, The Hut.
It is located seven minutes from Bangalow and 20 minutes from Byron Bay.
Wilkinson said the property was too big for the family of three so they’re selling to buy a home in Byron Bay.
“We fell in love with the property as soon as we saw the koalas up in the trees and creek with its platypuses.
“We bought it just before Covid and our daughter was born during that time – it was really special spending those early months with her there.
“We added a pool, an extra bedroom and a games room and we did a lot of landscaping.
“We renovated the old school-house restaurant and set it up during Covid. Its success has been amazing.
“We really wanted to give Possum Creek a heart.”
The Hut restaurant is leased to head chef Bruno Conti, floor manager Achille Martino and sommelier Augusto Pedroso.
It had initially been the Possum Creek School.
The Friday Hut Rd property, with 80m of Possum Creek frontage, has been listed with a $7.5m to $8.25m price guide though McGrath Byron Bay agents Nick Dunn and Ollie Charkos.
NEW ERA MAY COME SOON AT HISTORIC FARM
Comfort Hill, the Sutton Forest farm of the late Reg Grundy and his widow Joy Chambers-Grundy who died last year, is subject of heightened spring listing speculation.
It will face competition from Cloud Valley, the luxury 131-hectare property in the NSW Central Coast’s Yarramalong Valley, listed this week by Tim Hughes, former chairman of late media mogul Grundy’s RG Capital.
Cloud Valley, best known when owned by broadcast legend John Laws and his late wife Caroline, has $25m to $30m price guidance.
Comfort Hill was last traded when bought for $15m in 2007 from the late adman Michael Ball and his wife Daria.
The 200ha Sutton Forest hobby farm has a homestead that sits in 6ha of garden, which features a lake containing more than 10,000 yellow Japanese water iris. Parts of the sandstone house date back to the pioneering 1840s in the Southern Highlands.
Grundy, who helped create programs including Neighbours, Prisoner and Wheel of Fortune, died in 2016 in Bermuda, aged 92.
The couple’s Brisbane’s apartment in the tightly held Infinity building at 37 Harbour Rd, Hamilton, has been listed for sale. The full-floor 594sq m penthouse was bought for $5.44m off the plan in 2004.
The couple enjoyed mooring their luxury yacht Boadicea close by.
Expressions of interest close on October 11.
O MY, THERE’S A LOT TO DECIDE
National KIIS FM breakfast star Jackie O Henderson will need to get serious about selecting a kitchen fridge that will fit and whether to go with under-tile heating in her ensuite.
Randwick City Council has advised its approval of the $5.058 million plans for her Clovelly oceanfront plot.
The plans for her four-bedroom home designed by architect Madeleine Blanchfield were lodged mid-May.
Henderson reckons it will be “like you are in Italy on the Amalfi Coast”.
ROMA RECORD BUILT IN A DAY
Marrickville has secured a record $6 million sale with Roma, the four-bedroom, five-bathroom 1894 property, sold after the reinvention behind its double-fronted Italianate facade by Bayside Architecture & Construction.
The single-storey Livingstone Rd house on a 827sq m block was listed in July through Alex Mastoris at CobdenHayson with a modest $4.3 million guide.
The previous sales high was $4.9 million.
SHAVING A BIT OF THIS BLOCK
The price guidance for the Bondi Beach abode of The Block judge Darren Palmer and his husband Olivier Duvillard has been tweaked by $1 million.
The $9.5 million expectations now sit at $8.5 million through Raine & Horne.
The couple bought the Sir Thomas Mitchell Rd bungalow for $2.98 million in 2015, then rebuilt in 2022.
It’s had more than 7000 views on realestate.com.au.
Got a property news tip? Email jonathan.chancellor@news.com.au
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Originally published as The Sell: Beecroft finds premier tenant as Perrottet off to US
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