Values in the Forest district have risen after last year’s record $24.5 million sale of the Charlotte Park equestrian estate to cricket’s golden couple Alyssa Healy and Mitchell Starc.
Fairy Bower’s higher hopes
The recently built residence above Manly’s Shelley Beach was designed by Madeleine Blanchfield Architects.Credit: Domain
Manly’s trophy home market looks poised to claim an all-time new house price record after a freshly built Fairy Bower residence hit the market with a $35 million guide.
Chris Acret is the co-founder of Smartline, which was acquired by REA in 2017.Credit: Tamara Voninski
Justine Acret commissioned the Madeleine Blanchfield Architects redesign with Dangar Barin Smith gardens following her purchase of the Catholic Church leasehold in 2018 for $14 million. Husband Chris Acret co-founded mortgage broker Smartline, a majority stake of which was acquired by property giant REA in 2017 as part of a $67 million deal.
It was a bullish purchase price at the time from laparoscopic surgeon Craig Taylor, who took his money up the road to buy motorcycle champion Wayne Gardner’s former home for $16 million.
The Acret house is expected to top Manly’s suburb record by some $10 million.Credit: Domain
Michael Clarke, of Clarke & Humel, takes on the listing less than a year after a house across the road set a $25.05 million high when sold by Cathal O’Rourke, of UK construction giant Laing O’Rourke.
‘Livable’ at $30m
A house on the Rose Bay beachfront euphemistically billed as “livable” sold for about $30 million this week.
The exact sale price will be left to settlement given Sotheby’s Michael Pallier said he could not talk about a sale, though the marketing has slipped off property sites.
The Rose Bay beachfront home of Beverley Freedman was listed for $35 million before it sold for about $30 million.Credit: Domain
The sale ends more than half a century of ownership by Beverley Freedman, who is moving a few doors up the beachfront to a $14.5 million duplex she bought last year from prominent businessman Robert Champion De Crespigny.
Historic records show Freedman and her late husband, pharmacist Leo Freedman, owned their beachfront house since 1973, when they paid $147,000. Collins Avenue values have soared, led first by rag trader Nick Kelly’s $29 million in 2022 and the $35 million sale a few months later by Laser Clinic’s Alistair Champion.
Killara’s secret sale
Still with Sydney’s run of ridiculously expensive secret sales, the Killara home of oncologist Dr Sally Baron-Hay and Jamie Woodhill, of the Patrick stevedores founding family, has sold off-market for $15 million to little-known cash buyer Qiuqin Li.
The Federation house in Killara sold for $15 million to cash buyer Qiuqin Li.Credit: Domain
And in case anyone missed the extent of Sydney’s runaway house prices, the Federation house on 2300 square metres last traded for $3.6 million in 2011.
Woodhill has already re-emerged on title records as the $12.6 million buyer of a Palm Beach weekender last year.
Farewell to the ’Loo
The three-bedroom apartment is one of 34 in the Wharf Terraces at Woolloomooloo.Credit: Domain
Prominent barrister and former Mardi Gras president Richard Cobden SC is calling time on his quarter of a century in Woolloomooloo’s Wharf Terraces, with plans to move north. His pad is listed with Stone Real Estate’s Julian Rowe for $6.6 million ahead of auction this Saturday.
Cobden was a long-time resident in the harbourside complex when in 2006 he swapped a lease for a mortgage, buying his three-bedroom spread with double car space for $2.55 million.
