The Sell: Why Ray Martin turned his focus from Waverton to Cammeray
Award-winning media veteran Ray Martin, who has quietly sold his Waverton home of 35 years, has bought in nearby Cammeray.
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Award-winning media veteran Ray Martin, who has quietly sold his Waverton home of 35 years, has bought in nearby Cammeray.
The television journalist and his wife, Dianne, have paid $4.25m for a five-bedroom, three-bathroom contemporary house on 280sq m, with a compact 166sq m internal living space.
They have downsized from Finisterre – their five-bedroom, three-bathroom house with 337sq m internal living space, plus a skylit 39sq m pool house with kitchenette and toilet. That redundant McHatton St house, which sits on 798sq m, reportedly came to market on New Year’s Day and was sold within a fortnight for between $8m and $8.5m.
The couple had paid $900,000 in 1990 for the original 1930s home.
Its outdoor entertaining terrace came with a glass-framed pool.
The local paper calculated the Martins’ home was the fourth highest ever house sale in Waverton.
Martin, whose mentor is David Attenborough, began his career in 1965 as an ABC cadet. He was on the original team of reporters at Nine’s 60 Minutes in 1979 and he hosted A Current Affair between 1994 and 1998. He won five Gold and 26 Silver Logies during his as-yet unfinished six-decade career, which recently saw a three-part series on death and dying on SBS titled Ray Martin: The Last Goodbye.
Martin recently celebrated his 80th birthday at the Union Hotel in North Sydney. Sydney Confidential reported Andrew Denton, Gary Sweet, Wendy Harmer, Gretel Killeen, Derryn Hinch and Tracy Grimshaw were among the 150 in attendance, along with Martin’s The Midday Band from his eight years hosting the daytime program between 1985 and 1993.
The couple sold their Coolum retreat on Queensland’s Sunshine Coast for $2.65m in 2022, after paying $250,000 in 2001.
DESIGNS ON PADDINGTON DIMINISH WITH LAST SALE
Designer Collette Dinnigan is calling time on her longtime connection with Paddington.
She has listed her last holding, a Caledonia St warehouse, for sale. The price guidance has been advised as $9m to $10m.
It was bought in her fashion retailing heyday in 2003 for $2.4m from businessmen Neville Miles and Simon Tripp. They had paid $2.125m a year earlier when buying it from David and Dawn Beal.
The 360sq m property has been listed by The Agency as suitable for residential conversion.
The 288sq m internal space comes with exposed roof trusses, lofty 6m-high ceilings and concrete floors.
It is currently configured as reception, showroom and office space for The Mint Partners, the creative communications agency founded by Genevieve Taubman.
It is leased until May 31 this year at $231,189 plus GST per annum.
It was 1992 when, in her mid-20s and living above the shop, that Dinnigan opened her business on the William St, Paddington, retail strip.
It wasn’t long before her lingerie collection had its pret-a-porter baptism in Paris with her designs then sold to New York and London department stores.
Dinnigan went on to buy the boutique William St space for $625,000 in 1998, vacating it when she relocated to a Queen St site, which was closed in 2014.
The closure was due to her yearning desire to seek new adventures outside fashion, which included successfully honing in on international property accommodation ventures with her husband Bradley Cocks.
“One door closes, another opens – my heart has always been in Paddington,” Dinnigan told The Sell.
“I have had many properties in Paddington over the years and we hope to again soon, however, now we need something different to Caledonia St.”
Dinnigan sold the William St shop in 2018. She has also owned Paddington houses through the decades, the first in 2002 when she paid $4.1m for a resort-style, four-terrace Underwood St consolidation.
It was bought from the then-Altona, Point Piper-bound Deke and Eve Miskin through agent Bill Bridges, who recently celebrated his 96th birthday with family.
HOPES BUYERS WILL JUDGE BEACH PARADISE BY ONLINE COVERAGE
The Block judge and interior designer Darren Palmer and his cosmetics industry operative husband Olivier Duvillard have relisted their Bondi Beach home, hoping an online tour by Home Beautiful over summer will assist in finding a buyer.
Its new listing agents, Alexander Phillips and Vince Licata from PPD, have slashed the price guidance.
Palmer and Duvillard initially listed last September with a guide of $9.5m, which was revised to $8.5m when offered through Raine & Horne and Sotheby’s International.
There is now a $7.8m guide on the four-bedroom, four-bathroom Sir Thomas Mitchell Rd home cocooned by jungle plantings.
Its March 8 auction repricing sees the three-storey listing having garnered more than 1350 views so far on website realestate.com.au.
Palmer and Duvillard bought what was a 1930s California bungalow in 2015, paying just under $3m, before undertaking a full rebuild in 2022 in collaboration with architect John Deuchrass in a coastal minimalist style.
“There is just one room in this house that still has its 100-year-old horse hair ceiling,” Palmer’s video presentation advised buyers.
The home has four bedrooms plus a study, two lounge areas, and a Plungie pool on its unusually shaped, but very private, 440sq m block.
“On a quiet night you can hear the ocean,” he said.
“This is actually the longest-term house I’ve had in my entire life, except for when I was a child,” Darren told Home Beautiful in January.
He said his favourite design choice had been the double-sided fireplace which is in their winter living room.
The median house price in Bondi Beach currently sits at $4.3m, according to Proptrack, up 13.9 per cent in the past 12 months based on 40 sales. The median time on market is 45 days.
The married couple recently sold their short-term accommodation Suffolk Park home, Pompano House.
FIRST TIME ON RENTAL MARKET FOR PENTHOUSE
Wellness supplement queen Rachael Finch and her husband Mike Miziner are seeking tenants for their Waterloo apartment, publicly for the first time.
The couple, who are renting elsewhere in the eastern suburbs, vacated a few years ago after paying $1.65m off the plan in 2014. Since then, extended family have been staying in the apartment.
Now The Agency property manager Luke Lahood is looking for a tenant at $1950 a week for the two-level penthouse in the Diversity development on the corner of Archibald Ave and Bourke St.
The 10th floor apartment has three bedrooms, three bathrooms, and an internal balcony on which Finch previously kept her home sauna.
It has around 250sq m of indoor and outdoor living space, in the heart of the redevelopment of Waterloo.
Across the road, Woolworths’ development arm Fabcot is planning its mixed-use development, and adjacent is Danks St District, a six-building project currently underway by builder-developer DASCO.
Coronation Property also just spent $140m on a site next door to DASCO’s, where they intend to create a build-to-rent village.
Miziner and Finch, who have their burgeoning supplement company Kissed Earth, once owned a warehouse space around the corner from the apartment, on McEvoy St. They paid $700,000 in 2013 and sold for $2.3m in 2022.
The couple, with two children, met when they were paired together on Dancing With The Stars back in 2010.
WATERFRONT AUCTION BUSY BUT NO BIDS
It was a no-bid auction when one of the eight prestige Sydney auction listings, the oceanfront at 5 Marine Pde, Manly, was offered on Saturday morning.
The leasehold property, listed by Inland Excavations Pty Ltd, directed by the Drylie family, came with $10m to $11 guidance.
Auctioneer Vic Lorusso advised attendees that the Catholic Church, who retain the freehold, signalled on Friday that they would grant a 20-year lease extension to 2051 for an additional $1.65m.
The six-bedroom, six-bathroom freestanding leasehold property, with corner coffee outlet, first hit the market in 2018 with hopes a buyer would be prepared to pay $20m.
The unsold opportunity again returned to the market last April through Lisa Novak at Novak Real Estate in conjunction with Bulldog Realtor.
There were certainly a few attendees at the onsite 9am auction with the thick contract in their hands, but mostly they were coffee or beach devotees on the promenade. The rival agent Michael Clark stuck out as the only one in the dense crowd decked out in suit and tie. The casually attired Alec Jenman, the son of real estate heavyweight, Neil Jenman, was spotted elsewhere in the crowd.
The listing was the site of Manly’s first inn, the Tapestry. It has long been described as having the same potential as James Packer’s Campbell Pde, Bondi Beach, redevelopment that set a $29m record in 2018 when bought by the Medich family.
ELECTING TO GO PRESIDENTIAL
A vast three-storey mansion in rural Glenorie has sold for a record $11.75m.
Described by agents Will Hampson and Kate Lumby of Lumby Hampson as “The White House”, the eight-bedroom, eight-bathroom home sits on a private 16ha Old Northern Rd holding surrounded by national parks.
The buyer, KD Foundation Ltd, is associated with Mosman software businessman Sukender Jain.
TAKING ROUTE TO THE VERY TOP
Bus magnate Ron Murray has emerged as the $13m buyer of the two-level Stolyar family penthouse in Point Piper.
It was listed by a court-appointed trustee through Michael Pallier at Sotheby’s.
Last sold for $10.4m in 2020, the Longworth Ave abode sits atop the Martinique triplex on Lady Martins Beach.
Pamela Cannon-Murray, wife of Murray’s Coaches owner Ron, purchased the middle apartment in 2018.
BALMAIN EXTENSION
The Balmain home of interior designer Fiona Shakespeare and her husband, Ben, has been listed for a March 1 auction with $7m hopes.
The family lived in the 1850s Isabella St home for four years before the year-long renovation extended the house’s footprint, including an upper level, doubling its internal space.
Adrian Oddi’s marketing has Teddy, the groodle, at the front door and the cat inside.
Got a property news tip? Email jonathan.chancellor@news.com.au
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