Lisa Wilkinson and Peter FitzSimons revealed as buyers of $15m Mosman ‘castle’ penthouse
Lisa Wilkinson and Peter FitzSimons have been revealed as the $15 million buyers of a Mosman penthouse in Britannic Mansions, a quirky, turreted heritage building that crowns the lower north shore.
Lower north shore celebrity couple Lisa Wilkinson and Peter FitzSimons have emerged as the $15m buyers of a Mosman penthouse, which crowns the eccentric castle-like complex, Britannic Mansions.
The settlement paperwork lodged this week revealed they bought at the lower end of its $15m to $16.5m price guide in February.
The top floor in the 1910s block of six comes with a rooftop terrace with a teppanyaki barbecue, open rooftop bathtub and views of the city.
The waterfront block has gardens, a cave and a jetty.
With heritage-protected sandstone facade, and distinctive turret with fort-like crenellations, the castle was built on Curraghbeena Point for Francis Cherry Willis and his wife Elizabeth, who operated the Brittanic Mansions boarding house.
His brother, federal MP Henry Willis, and his wife Annie constructed Innisfallen Castle at Castle Cove.
Britannic Mansions was converted into strata in the early 1980s by property investor Andrew Best.
Former The Project presenter Wilkinson and author FitzSimons bought the apartment from Susan and Mark Luby, the former chief executive of building products supplier Alesco Corp.
With 530sq m of indoor and outdoor living, the Raglan St apartment last changed hands at $2.85m in 2003 and has since been extensively upgraded.
Their 3214sq m Cremorne estate, with five-bedroom Arts & Craft-era home, Ingleneuk, has not yet settled, but it is understood to have sold for less than its $24.5m vendor bid.
Westpac head of institutional banking Nell Hutton has been pinpointed as the buyer.
Hutton has been at Westpac for nearly four years and was previously at Goldman Sachs.
Nell and husband Hamish own another lower north shore historic property, Dunaird, in Wollstonecraft, which they bought for $9.2m in 2020.
No indication yet of the Californian bungalow on its 1900sq m, which was built for Sir Clifford Love, one of the founders of Uncle Tobys, hitting the open market.
FRANKLINS DOWNSIZE TO $4.6M COUNTRY ESTATE
Retired AFL champion Lance “Buddy” Franklin and expectant wife Jesinta are downsizing to a $4.6m Guanaba estate, on the Gold Coast in South East Queensland.
Avonleigh Park, a 3.2ha property on the banks of the Coomera River, is their new home following its mid-week settlement.
It was snapped up before its scheduled July auction after garnering 21,000 online views.
Kara Christensen and Bella Sorenson of the Kollosche agency undertook 15 private inspections before securing the sale after 20 days on the market.
The main residence is a modern farmhouse set on an elevated position overlooking the landscaped grounds with dams. There is a riverside gazebo.
Its features include a home office, multiple kitchens and dining spaces.
There is a deck leading to an alfresco pavilion with an infinity edge pool. The property comes with equestrian facilities with stables and a barn, which matched the celebrity couple’s stated requirement for a less suburban life.
There is a large chicken coop and garden beds.
This month, the former Sydney Swans star and his model influencer wife opened up to Stellar about their desire for a quiet life in the country as they prepare for the arrival of their third child.
The couple recently sold their Mediterranean-style mansion on the Gold Coast. Their Reedy Creek home, Villa Casa, came with reported $12m expectations having been designed by Reece Keil Design with Spanish-style arches.
They had bought the contemporary house for $8.75m in 2022 on their move from their $4.8m Rose Bay apartment.
Located about 32km northwest of Reedy Creek towards Tamborine Mountain, Guanana, with a population of about 800, is a semi-rural district known for its polo fields.
“I absolutely loved my time living in Sydney,” said Franklin, 38, who retired from football in 2023.
“But when we had kids, things changed; it felt a bit too chaotic there.
“I love being on country and seeing the kids run around. For the last four or five years, I didn’t enjoy the other stuff that came with living in Sydney, in terms of always looking over your shoulder for paparazzi. I just hated that part of it. I was ready for something different.”
“We don’t want to worry about neighbours,” Jesinta, 34, said.
“We want to have horses and chickens and bees, and grow our own fruit and veg. There’s just been a real shift in the pace of our life.” There are riparian pumping rights at the property, which last changed hands for $1.1m in 2011.
OFF SHORE’S $1M VIDEO CAMPAIGN FAILS TO LAND
Sydney’s most expensive video marketing auction campaign for Off Shore, a luxury Greenhills Beach listing, has come to nought.
The campaign that secured 55 media appearances disappeared from listing websites midweek ahead of its scheduled weekend auction. Listed with $7m-plus guidance, it got 6000 page views on realestate.com.au, but just 4600 YouTube views and Instagram 1571 likes.
Its listing agent Tiffany Perez, who parachuted into the video footage in high heels before taking the audience on a property tour, advised interested buyers that circumstances had changed.
There was no auction board sign out the front of the five-bedroom Shorebird Parade house of vendors, firefighter and flight attendant Glenn and Lorraine Jackson, when The Sell did an auction-eve drive-by.
The over-the-top marketing campaign was not actually of their doing, having got the call from Ray White headquarters saying they wanted to give them the “red carpet” treatment. It was to launch their NurtureCloud AI-powered prospecting technology, which pinpoints what buyers are searching for, ie four to five bedrooms (60 per cent), two bathrooms (53 per cent) and a location near the water (25 per cent). The two-day video production was shot by director Nash Edgerton, who headed a 60-person crew with an estimated near $1m cost.
Ray White billed it as bringing “Hollywood to the Shire”, starring actor Richard Roxburgh in “No.33 The Movie”, a cinematic action-packed short advertisement on 33 Shorebird. Popcorn was even served at opens.
The couple built the house after buying the 700sq m vacant land in 2015 for $1.67m.
The record for the dress-circle Shorebird Parade beachfront was $15.7m in March last year to the Shoukry family. Acqua Noir, the mostly charcoal-coloured bespoke home, was sold by the Khalil family. There was a $15m sale last month when the Mao family bought from the Da Silva family.
HAZELWOOD HOME TAKES A FINAL BOW
The Hazelwood family has listed their holiday home at Boomerang Beach.
The Headland Rd property has been held in the family since 1970.
It has been listed for December 6 auction through Matt Healy of Pacific Palms following the death of Sydney Symphony Orchestra concert master Donald Hazelwood in March.
Healy is offering a $2.5m price guide for the single-level hilltop beach house set on 607sq m.
The four-bedroom, two-bathroom house comes with an expansive open-plan living space with kitchen, dining and family area, and flows out to a full-length timber deck with veranda.
The realestate.com.au listing, which has garnered 800-plus page views, comes with a video tour of the house with violin accompaniment, from Donald Hazelwood’s repertoire.
He was the concert master of the orchestra for 33 years from 1965 until his retirement in 1998.
After growing up on a Riverina farm, he attended the Sydney Conservatorium of Music during Eugene Goossens’ directorship.
The Hazelwood-Pini family of musicians would regularly make the trip to the coast to their beach house.
PropTrack puts Boomerang Beach’s median house price at $1,865,000, up 7.8 per cent over the past 12 months based on 11 sales.
Its peak median was 2022 at $2,962,000, when a $5.4m record was paid.
The record stands at $6m.
The median time on market is 57 days.
PACKER’S ATO FEAR MEANS HOME TIME BITTERSWEET
Coverage of the recent James Packer interview for the Rampart website has overlooked the puzzling backdrop to his Christmas homecoming to catch up with family and friends in Sydney.
“Is it perhaps a bittersweet relationship that you have these days with your home town?,” the Australian billionaire, 58, was asked during the one-hour interview.
“Um, it’s probably a bittersweet relationship I have with the ATO.
“You know, I mean, I’m non-resident. I’ve probably spent six weeks in Australia in the last 10 years, and you know, I’m told that if I spend any more than a couple of weeks in Australia, you know, they’re going to be difficult.”
The abbreviated uploaded video, recently filmed on board his yacht IJE in Fiji, did not take the matter further.
Of course, there have been whispers that Packer refrains from bringing IJE, his 108m yacht into Australian waters for fear of it being impounded.
IJE’s next voyage seems set to be to the Panama Canal, so he will possibly sail on to his Mexican retreat.
Packer retains clear title to his Crown Resort, Barangaroo apartment, which cost $72,229,573 in 2021, and his Bellevue Hill family compound, which cost $105m in 2023.
Packer’s principal residence is in the Colorado ski resort town of Aspen that he bought in 2013 for $US15.6m.
REBEL’S SALES PITCH PAYS OFF
Frank and Nicole Papoutsis have emerged as the $2.125m buyers of actor Rebel Wilson’s redundant Balmain investment property.
The top-floor two-bedroom Reynolds St apartment came to market with a $2.3m guidance in May last year.
Set in the Lever Brothers soap factory conversion project, the Pitch Perfect star purchased it off the plan for $1.8m in 2015.
The buyers have just sold in Wareemba for $1.15m.
VILLA LIGHTS UP THE MARKET
A striking single storey Sans Souci townhouse offering listed through Ibrahim Yaghmour of McGrath has attracted over 6000 page views since going up on realestate.com.au.
The Walter St four-bedroom, two-bathroom villa comes with Viola stone aplenty amid its walls of Venetian plaster and sculptural lighting.
Set on 210 sqm at the rear of the Sofola complex, it is being sold by vendor Stephen Grace fully furnished.
RECORD RESULT DOES THE JOB
Joel Barbuto, CEO of Gough Recruitment, and his partner Shayne Coffey have sold their Scarborough weekender for $3.5m, securing a record price.
The clifftop three-bedroom, three-bathroom Lawrence Hargrave Drive home had $3m guidance through Highland.
It had previously been on the market in 2023 and last year with $3.9m guidance.
The prior record was $2.85m, set last year.
Got a property news tip? Email jonathan.chancellor@news.com.au
Originally published as Lisa Wilkinson and Peter FitzSimons revealed as buyers of $15m Mosman ‘castle’ penthouse
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