‘I wouldn’t live anywhere else’: Bob Carr buys $8.8m penthouse at Coogee Beach

Former NSW premier Bob Carr and his late wife Helena were already hatching plans to downsize from their Maroubra family home last year when she died suddenly as they were travelling through Austria.

But rather than face the prospect of returning to live in the family home he shared with his wife of half a century, Carr has snapped up a penthouse overlooking Coogee Beach for $8.8 million.

The four-bedroom penthouse previously traded in 1996 for $1.38 million, and resold recently for $8.8 million.Credit: Domain

“The day I got back from Europe an ex-staffer had me to dinner and handed me a leaflet on this place,” Carr said. “I knew ‘H’ would have loved it, and it was clearly not the sort of place that would come up again soon.”

And so in the most extraordinary of circumstances, or perhaps because of them, Carr made an offer on the 10th floor apartment that was well above the $7.5 million guide set The Agency’s Bethwyn Richards and just days before it was due to go to auction.

Bob Carr walking along Maroubra Beach earlier this year.Credit: Brook Mitchell

The rarity of such a find was compounded by Carr’s own criteria: it had to be in Maroubra or Coogee, given he grew up in the area and was for decades the local member for parliament, and it had to be close to the beach and shops given he doesn’t drive.

“I love the people around here,” he said. “I’ve lived my life among them, they voted for me when I needed them in 1991, and I love the beaches and the democratic atmosphere around here. I wouldn’t live anywhere else.”

Carr held the nearby seat of Maroubra for almost 22 years, having won it in a by-election in 1983 until he resigned in 2005, ending his term as the state’s longest-serving premier.

The Maroubra house Carr purchased in late 1979 for $173,000 is set to hit the market this year, and he recently off-loaded an investment property he owned near Queenstown in New Zealand.

Mad for Hunters Hill

The De Angelis publican family already own six waterfront properties on the Hunters Hill’s peninsula, so what’s one more.

Family patriarch Arch De Angelis has forked out $13 million for the Queen Anne Federation home of the late fishing industry pioneer Bob Mostyn.

The Federation house long-owned by the late Bob Mostyn sold for $13 million to the De Angelis family.Credit: Domain

Mostyn, the former boss of seafood exporter Craig Mostyn and Co, had owned it since 1967, paying $71,600, before he died in 2022 aged 93. It went to auction last year with a $12 million guide through McGrath’s Matthew Ward.

Damon Herriman has owned in Newtown for more than 20 years.Credit: Janie Barrett

Among the De Angelis family’s stockpile of local homes is that held by Robyn De Angelis, sister to billionaire publican Arthur Laundy, neighbouring houses owned by Arch and son Phillip that were purchased in 2021 for $9 million and $13.5 million, two houses in Woolwich owned by siblings Marc and Nicole, and a block of apartments owned by their brother Peter.

Good neighbours

Actor Damon Herriman has doubled down on his Newtown home real estate, buying a four-bedroom terrace near King Street for $2.4 million.

It was an off-market purchase by the long-time local, who has owned his neighbouring terrace since 2002.

Herriman has been a working actor since he was eight and scored a role on the then hit television series The Sullivans, and in more recent years has starred in Foxtel’s Secret City, and US hits Breaking Bad, CSI and in Quentin Tarantino’s Once Upon A Time in Hollywood.

From Paris with love

As film editor Christian Gazal and his Francophile wife Emily Lawrence return to Sydney after living in Paris for six years they have put their Bondi Beach bungalow to the market with a $3 million guide.

The Bondi Beach house goes to auction on February 24 with a guide of $3 million.Credit: Domain

Gazal, whose film credits include George Miller’s Happy Feet and Happy Feet Two, Peter Rabbit and more recently Migration, has owned the four-bedroom house since 2010, paying $1.63 million.

PPD’s Jason Pantzer takes it to auction on February 24.

In nearby North Bondi, Peter Ainsworth, the 39-year-old grandson of billionaire pokie king Len Ainsworth, has purchased designer digs for $7.4 million.

The MHN Design Union residence was completed in 2022, and sold recently for $7.4 million to Peter Ainsworth.Credit: Domain

Settlement revealed the purchase by Ainsworth, a director and owner of commercial lender Vivian Locke Capital, after it was listed with PPD’s Alexander Phillips.

Wisr’s Anthony Nantes resigned from Wisr last year in the wake of stalking and harrassment charges.Credit:

The MHN Design Union-designed semi was sold by Anthony Nantes, who last August was stood down as chief of listed fintech Wisr after he was arrested for stalking and harassing a former employee. Nantes pleaded guilty to charges of stalking late last year.

Garden escape

Also forgoing a mortgage on their latest house purchase is Surry Hills local Alexandra Muldoon, daughter of agribusinessman and investment banker Garrick Hawkins.

Muldoon, who with her husband Chris Muldoon runs the family’s largest privately owned, cool-climate garden Mayfield near Oberon, has paid $8.35 million for the Victorian terrace in Surry Hills of architect Kevin Snell.

Snell had owned the 1892-built terrace Albert Villa since 1997, and listed it with Sotheby’s Harriett France.

Albert Villa in Surry Hills was built in 1892 and for years was the home and studio of archtect Kevin Snell.Credit: Domain