The Sell: Ferrari-crasher Norman VanCuylenberg bankrupt, former family home being sold

Mike Cannon-Brookes and wife Annie have spent $14.25m to buy a neighbouring property at their tropical Newport getaway. Don’t miss The Sell.

Mike Cannon-Brookes and wife Annie have spent $14.25m to buy a neighbouring property at their tropical Newport getaway.

The beachfront was bought from Chris and Julieann Boffa, of the hairdressing family.

The Boffas had optimistically sought $20m for the five-bedroom home, which was offered through James Baker at McGrath.

Set on 3000sq m, the four-level home comes with an approved 1000sq m netted bathing area.

It sits adjacent to the designer home the Cannon-Brookes family bought in 2020 for $24.5m after its construction by Jennifer Hawkins and Jake Wall.

Mike and Annie Cannon-Brookes have bought the neighbouring property at Newport.

Another Newport listing to take less than initial expectations was from Wallabies great-turned-TV sports presenter Matt Burke and his wife Kate, who pocketed $4.8m when they sold pre-auction earlier this year.

It had been offered with a $4.85m guide through LJ Hooker Palm Beach agent Peter Robinson.

The couple, who will be downsizing locally, first listed last September with $5m hopes.

There had been a major 2014 renovation overseen by Iain Halliday after they bought the house in 2013 for $1,677,000.

Burke, who joined Sandra Sully on the desk of Ten News Sydney in 2013, played 81 Tests for Australia during his 12-year international career.

Former Wallaby-turned-Channel 10 sports reporter Matt Burke.

The settlement paperwork lodged this week shows the buyer of the five-bedroom house as fashion designer Imogen Merrony. She’s the daughter of Caroline Blackmore, the wife of Marcus Blackmore, the vitamins company entrepreneur.

Merrony sits on the board of the Blackmore Foundation, which is the philanthropic trust of the Blackmore family.

The documentation shows her stepfather lent $5.1m to enable her purchase.

The Newport median house price sits at $2.77m, down 17 per cent in a year, according to realestate.com.au, after 67 sales.

IT ALL FALLS DOWN WHEN YOU CRASH ONE FERRARI

Mortgage broker Norman VanCuylenberg, who hit the headlines in 2020 when he crashed his new Ferrari 599 into Sydney CBD shoppers, has been bankrupted.

And his business, GFG Private Label, is the subject of an ongoing public examination by BRI Ferrier liquidators David Cocker and Peter Krejci.

VanCuylenberg told the Supreme Court senior deputy registrar Jennifer Hedge midweek that his occupation was “unemployed bankrupt”.

He further advised the court he was of “no fixed address”.

When pressed by the liquidators’ barrister Jonathan Nathan, he advised he had been living in Airbnbs.

Mortgage broker Norman VanCuylenberg and (inset) the Ferrari he crashed in Sydney’s CBD in 2020.

VanCuylenberg, known also as Norman Formisano, told the hearing he was reluctant to reveal his whereabouts on Queensland’s Sunshine Coast because he had faced “threats” since his bankruptcy.

The hearing was advised he was also going through a separation from his wife Edith Valenzuela Caceres, who resides at her $1.9 million house at Doonan, just outside Noosa.

Their former Sydney abode, at Marsden Park in Sydney’s northwest, has been listed for sale by Caceres, who bought it for $401,000 in 2016.

The four-bedroom, three-bathroom house has a $1.35 million asking price through Theesan Pather and Pera Tutua-Nathan of Urban Land Housing.

The house, set within the Elara estate, is an award-winning Bristol design.

VanCuylenberg’s former home at Marsden Park is up for sale.

Caceres told Registrar Hedge that her Noosa Heads investment apartment had also been listed for sale. It was bought for $615,000 in 2017.

VanCuylenberg’s personal and professional “upheaval” first aired after his $300,000 Ferrari crashed onto the Market St pavement midafternoon in January 2020. He was twice over the legal limit at 0.107 and driving on a suspended licence.

There have been two creditors who’ve taken action seeking recovery of unspecified funds.

The initial application was by 365 Financial, which is directed by glamorous TikTok rap star Amarni Skaf.

VanCuylenberg changed the name of his business from GFG Private Label to ACN 629 147 628 Pty Ltd five days before the application to wind up the company.

There had also been an application from David Tan’s Terry Road Developments.

BAKER HAS A HOT PROPERTY DEAL COOKING

Property developer Gary Baker is officially back in the game after an enforced absence on the sidelines.

His former wife, Hermes boss Karin Upton Baker, transferred two prime Bondi Beach carparking spaces into his ownership last month.

The dress circle Notts Ave car spaces were registered in the name of Baker’s company GJBXX Pty Ltd without any transfer fee.

Property developer Gary Baker.

Hermes boss Karin Upton Baker.

Values of the premium stand-alone car spaces are rarely tested, with $240,000 paid on Brighton Boulevard in 2010, and $300,000 in 2018 when Sarah Rothwell, then wife of Winten Property Group chief David Rothwell, paid a record on Campbell Pde.

Baker’s car spaces are located in the early 1980s Pacific Terraces complex, which had a Stanic Harding update that prompted its short-listing in the 1998 RAIA merit awards.

His acquisitions are actually another shuffle in ownership between the duo.

The spaces were initially owned by Baker’s company Montpensier, which paid $90,000 and $100,000 in 2007. The car spaces were located next to the apartment block where Baker was seeking to accumulate all eight apartments in an overly ambitious property play.

He sold the car spaces to his wife, at a small loss, six months before Montpensier went into administration in 2009 after the project met costly headwinds, some two years before his own bankruptcy.

Upton-Baker has transferred two carparking spaces in Bondi’s Pacific Terraces to her ex.

Upton Baker settled the legal action against her by financial services company Challenger, but it did see the couple lose their luxury Elizabeth Bay abode in 2014 as it had been collateral.

The couple separated in 2020, with Upton Baker buying a $2.285 million apartment at Darlinghurst in 2021.

Curiously Baker still gives his address as the Billyard Ave, Elizabeth Bay, dormer pied-à-terre, along with a Bentleigh post office box in Melbourne for any ASIC paperwork.

UNIQUE SPREAD IS ONE IN PAVILION

Corinthian Engineering’s Richard Perini has spent $5 million to buy Ashbrookes Farm, the rural offering at Mount White on the Central Coast.

The 8.65ha estate, offered through Inglis Property, fetched a record price.

It has three pavilion-style detached cottages, plus equine facilities including a stables complex with seven boxes, show jumping and dressage arenas, and 20 horse yards.

There’s also a chook house, and hydroponic house with water supplied by a spring water bore.

Ashbrookes Farm was sold by show jumper Krissy Rawson-Harris, the widow of horse trainer Heath Harris.

Richard Perini has spent $5 million on Mount White’s Ashbrookes Farm.

They undertook the remarkable colonial recreation of the historic three-pavilion Balala homestead at Uralla in New England, the idea for their Central Coast hinterland property starting with concept drawings by designer Peter Sergel, and was then built by Mark Vandenberg and Mark MacKenzie.

The three separate pavilions were built around a garden courtyard and linked by covered verandas.

The main pavilion has the dining, living and kitchen space. The next pavilion, with its two guestrooms, office and laundry, was a recreation of Balala’s station store and bookkeeper’s residence.

The other wing, with self-contained quarters, was based on Balala’s schoolhouse and teacher’s residence.

All feature hardwood timbers milled on the property, and Queensland sandstone edging.

It had been briefly up for sale in 2012 when priced at $3.8 million.

KELLER TUNES IN TO INVESTMENT OPPORTUNITY

Longtime WSFM radio presenter Amanda Keller and her husband Harley Oliver have bought an investment townhouse in Newtown.

They’ve spent $1.923 million on a modern warehouse-style townhouse with three bedrooms across two levels, plus 47sq m for garaging.

With 343sq m on the title, the laneway townhouse comes with a garden courtyard just steps from Enmore Rd.

There are polished concrete floors throughout.

WSFM radio presenter Amanda Keller. Picture: Darren Leigh Roberts

Keller’s new investment at Newtown.

Listed through Adrian Tsavalas and Kate Ferrante at Adrian William Real Estate, the home was selling for the first time since 2013, when it was sold for $870,000 by the developer.

There are four in the stylish strata complex.

There’s been no sign of the purchase being rented out on listing websites.

Realestate.com.au puts Newtown’s three-bedroom median house price at $1.876 million, which is well down on its $1.95 million peak last July.

Keller, the host of the lifestyle program The Living Room, has called Coogee home for more than two decades, with the couple submitting four development applications, starting with a pool in 2011 and, more recently, seeking a vergola.

Two years ago Keller and Oliver, who have been married since 1990, spent $1,475 million on a weekender in Culburra Beach on the South Coast.

ESTATE BACK ON THE MARKET

Finance entrepreneur Simon Tripp and his wife Brenda are re-offering their 2ha, six-paddock Duffys Forest estate Jabilusa.

There’s been no formal price disclosure by Sydney Country Living listing agent Shayne Hutton, but three years ago they were seeking $9.5 million for the six-bedroom mansion with tennis court, pool and equestrian facilities on Booralie Rd.

It cost $2.8 million in 2007.

SECOND SHOT SECURES GOAL

A $6.375 million Potts Point terrace sale in February fell over amid a cryptocurrency play that went awry.

The Lam family will not only keep the $350,000 deposit, but the Rockwall Cres terrace fetched a higher price when auctioned through R&W Elizabeth Bay midweek.

Auctioneer Damien Cooley secured $6.8 million after two registered bidders fought for the 1890s terrace that cost $4.85 million in 2016.

FAMILY TIES ON THE WATERFRONT

The Teoh family has bought again on the Cremorne waterfront, purchasing from the Walter family after 46 years of ownership.

The $15 million acquisition was by Shane Teoh, who followed his brother Bob’s purchase next door for $16 million.

They are two of the four sons of billionaire TPG telco founder David Teoh.

The brothers own eyewear company Oscar Wylee.

Originally published as The Sell: Ferrari-crasher Norman VanCuylenberg bankrupt, former family home being sold