Grand Toorak mansion sells, smashing Victoria’s house price record
Logistics boss Paul Little and wife Jane Hansen, the chancellor of the University of Melbourne, have sold their grand mansion in Toorak, resetting records for Victoria’s top-end homes.
The price was reported to be as high as $150 million, although four sources aware of the deal but not authorised to comment publicly thought the price was closer to $115 million.
Paul Little and Jane Hansen’s Coonac estate in Toorak.Credit: Craig Abraham
A sale at the upper end of the range would set a new national residential record, but a sale at either level would eclipse Victoria’s house price record, which stands at a whisker above $80 million set by crypto casino entrepreneur Ed Craven for a dilapidated home in St Georges Road, Toorak.
Australia’s residential property record is $140 million for an apartment amalgamation yet to settle in Lendlease’s Residences One tower at Barangaroo in Sydney.
The highest-priced house sales are $130 million each for tech billionaire Scott Farquhar’s sale of Elaine in Sydney’s Point Piper, and his purchase of the nearby Uig Lodge.
Either way, the Toorak sale’s stamp duty will add millions to the Victorian government’s coffers. For a buyer with permanent residency, $7.45 million in stamp duty would be payable at the lower end of the speculated price range, or as much as $9.73 million at the upper end.
The sources said there had been interest in Little and Hansen’s home at about $100 million a year ago, but the owners decided not to sell at that stage.
Little and Hansen have owned the Clendon Road mansion known as Coonac since 2002, when they paid $14.5 million.
The couple bought a South Yarra renovation project, Simonds Hall, in 2020, which could offer a future option to downsize. But the South Yarra renovation is not thought to be complete, which may require an extended settlement.
Jane Hansen and Paul Little.Credit: Peter Casamento
The exact price paid and buyer will become public on settlement.
Agency Kay & Burton is thought to have handled the deal. Chairman Gerald Delany declined to comment on any aspect of the deal, including the price or buyer.
Managing director Ross Savas could not be reached. A company spokesperson provided a statement which did not confirm the deal, but said: “The luxury property market has thrived over the past 12 months, driven by strong demand from Kay & Burton’s private client network of both domestic and international buyers.
“As Australia’s high-net-worth population continues to grow, the imbalance between supply and demand in this segment will continue.”
Coonac is one of Melbourne’s finest homes.Credit: Louis Trerise
Coonac is set on about 1.09 hectares, one of the largest blocks in Toorak. The property’s neighbour, on a smaller but still large block of close to 4800 square metres, sold in 2023 for $40 million.
Little was valued at $2.25 billion on the most recent AFR Rich List, after selling trucking company Toll Holdings to Japan Post in 2015 for $6.5 billion.
He also ran a property development company, Little Projects, which he sold in 2018.
Hansen is a former investment banker at Macquarie Bank and Credit Suisse First Boston.
For deep-pocketed buyers, another Toorak home is still available – the Myer family estate Cranlana on the other side of the street, at 1.14 hectares and with a price guide of $96 million to $105 million.
Both are among Melbourne’s finest homes. Cranlana offers scope for a renovation and is still searching for the right custodian, listed through Marshall White, whereas Coonac is said to be move-in ready.
Coonac was last sold by then-Spotless managing director Brian Blythe.
The Victorian heritage database says the Italianate-style home was built in 1866-67 for Robert Bruce Ronald, joint Victorian manager of the Australian Mercantile Land and Finance Co, who owned several pastoral stations, cattle stations and sugar plantations and mills.