Ainsworth pokie machine family show the house always wins

The Southern Highlands property Braesyde sold this week for what sources say was well in excess of its $20 million asking price.

Owned by Gretel Ainsworth, matriarch of the billionaire pokie machine family, this is the 48-hectare property bought by an Ainsworth family trust in 1997 for $1.22 million, and on which a grand European-style mansion was commissioned 20 years ago.

The European-style mansion was built about 20 years ago and features everything from a tennis court to a helicopter hangar.

Drew Lindsay Real Estate’s Samuel Lindsay would not reveal the price, confirming only that it has sold.

For the price range, it would want to come with plenty of add-ons – think internal pool and spa, tennis court, croquet lawn, a few lakes, helicopter hangar, rumpus room with a pool table, wet bar and bowling alley.

Centennial Park’s new high

A $20 million budget is what it takes to buy a decent house in Centennial Park now, as retired colonel Andrew MacNab and his wife Melanie found out this week.

The Federation residence has smashed the Centennial Park record at more than $20 million.

The couple listed their Federation residence earlier this month with an $18 million to $20 million guide, only to see it quickly snapped up.

There was at least a renovation of the parkside residence since it was sold three years ago by Wesfarmers senior executive Ed Bostock and his wife Emma for $13 million.

The sale price remains undisclosed by The Agency’s Ben Collier, but it is expected to settle at more than $20 million – a jump in value of more than $7 million since early 2019.

It tops the previous high of $16.5 million, when arts patrons Dr Gene Sherman and her husband Brian bought down the road from tech billionaire Mike Cannon-Brookes.

Despite being a suburb record, it wasn’t this week’s top sale in the eastern suburbs. That honour goes to the Rose Bay beachfront house long owned by the late York Motors chief David Shmith.

The Rose Bay beachfront house designed by architect Espie Dods sold on Friday.

The result wasn’t on offer from the agent, also Collier, but sources say it came close to the $30 million guide.

Shmith was Sydney’s sole purveyor of Rolls-Royce and Bentley cars when he purchased it in 1985 for $645,000, commissioning a redesign by architect Espie Dods soon after.

Glebe’s literary attraction

It seems half of Glebe turned up last weekend to see acclaimed author Anna Funder and her husband, architect and urban designer Craig Allchin, buy an Italianate Victorian house in Glebe’s Toxteth Estate with a knock-out bid of $6.225 million.

Author Anna Funder and her husband, architect Craig Allchin, are already inner west locals.Credit: Janie Barrett

Ray White’s Matthew Carvalho initially had a $4.7 million guide when it was listed last month, but by the time five buyers registered on auction day interest had pushed expectations up and the reserve is understood to have been at close to $5.5 million.

Ultimately, only three parties offered competing bids, but it was enough to land a result that is almost triple the $2.2 million the house last traded for in 2008.

The author of All That I Am, the 2012 winner of Australia’s premier literary prize, the Miles Franklin Award, has frequently been spotted on the inner west’s house-hunting trail in recent years, presumably to trade up from her long-held Forest Lodge terrace.

Mosman’s rising stocks

In early 2020, as Sydneysiders were first being warned of a new strain of the coronavirus, the chairman of the medical technology company SYMBYX, Peter Carre, listed his designer Mosman home for $16 million.

The Land House at Mosman was listed at the start of the pandemic for $16 million, but never sold.

Known as the Land House, it didn’t sell, and for family reasons it was withdrawn from the market soon after.

It’s a good thing, too, given it sold this week for what sources say is more than $19 million, although Atlas’ Michael Coombs won’t confirm that result.

Another cashed-up Mosman downsizer is former Perpetual boss Geoff Lloyd, who this week sold his Federation mansion, Cambria, on Balmoral Avenue. Gag orders meant Coombs could not reveal the sale price, leaving it to the local rumour mill to reveal a sale price of close to $17.5 million.

Good sport in Bondi Junction

Fox Sports presenter Tony Squires and brand strategist-Pilates instructor Kate Pascoe Squires have listed their designer Bondi Junction home with a $5 million guide.

Architect Graham Ormsby redesigned the Bondi Junction terrace before he sold it in 2010.

Fox Sports presenter Tony Squires is selling his Bondi Junction home.Credit: Steven Siewert

This is the three-level house redesigned by architect Graham Ormsby more than a decade ago before he sold it in 2010 for $2.375 million to art gallery owner Richard Martin.

Squires is a former Herald journalist and was a presenter on Triple M’s rugby program The Ruck in 2011, when he and the family were upgrading from Clovelly to buy Martin’s Bondi Junction home for $2.6 million.

Belle Property Bondi Junction’s Ed Brown and Daniel Gillespie have set a March 19 auction.

Birchgrove’s dream home

When the late Barbara Penfold (nee Mathias) used to catch the ferry from Longueville to the city with her artist friend Brett Whiteley, she used to fantasise about one day calling the Birchgrove waterfront residence Yurulbin her home.

The pair had been close friends since 1956, and she was often gifted sketches by the then National Art School student in exchange for the cost of his transport fare, or so the story goes.

Yurulbin is the Birchgrove house that in the mid-1980s was home to the Bandidos bikie gang.

Fast-forward to 1986, and Whiteley was already regarded as one of Australia’s most acclaimed artists, and Penfold and her husband Stephen, of the WC Penfold stationary family, bought her dream home for $490,000.

No matter that, at the time, the property was in no great shape, having been recently rented by the Bandidos Motorcycle Club as their official clubhouse.

The four-bedroom residence on 727 square metres has clearly been renovated since, but still claims its original ornate finishes, front-row harbourfront position at the end of Louisa Road, and a slew of Whiteley originals adorning the walls.

McGrath’s Megan Smith has set a $12 million guide ahead of the March 16 auction.

Designer ambitions

Still with the prime-positioned real estate of the Balmain peninsula, architect Brian Zulaikha and his partner, artist Janet Laurence, have listed their award-winning home and have plans to move closer to Berry on the South Coast.

What was built as a gunpowder store in 1918 on the Balmain East waterfront was purchased by the couple in 2002 for $1.06 million, making it the third property Zulaikha has owned on Datchett Street since he moved there in 1976.

Architect Brian Zulaikha at work in his award-winning Balmain East home.

Once complete, the redesign by Zulaikha and Drew Heath Architects scored a couple of awards from the Australian Institute of Architects in 2007, and even prompted Pulitzer Prize-winning author Geraldine Brooks to recently offer $6 million and her home up the road in exchange for it.

However, the offer by Martha’s Vineyard-based Brooks has since gone missing after she realised the home is officially a one-bedroom residence.

The former gunpowder store was purchased in 2002 and rebuilt into an award-winning house a few years later.

BresicWhitney’s Shannan Whitney and Modern House’s Marcus Lloyd-Jones have a guide of $5 million to $5.5 million.

Larry Emdur’s star listing

Seven’s co-host of The Morning Show Larry Emdur has had a rethink on the Kangaroo Valley holiday home he bought 18 months ago for $2.15 million.

Emdur and his wife Sylvie have already undertaken a few improvements to the striking industrial-style getaway built from shipping containers since it was sold by architect Alexander Michael.

Larry Emdur and his wife Sylvie have had a rethink on their Kangaroo Valley property.Credit: Ken Butti

But, as Emdur said on a social media post this week, “our time, attention and focus is required for another exciting, but all-consuming project, so we’ve reluctantly decided to place SkyRidge on the market”.

That project is in Berowra Waters, where the couple paid $1 million last June for a waterfront property, of which Sylvie is now overseeing a major renovation.

Enter son Jye Emdur, of Ray White, who has been enlisted to sell the Kangaroo Valley house. Stay tuned for the price range.

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