Flight Centre's Geoff Harris extends wings on St Vincent Place, Albert Park?
Geoff Harris, the co-founder of Flight Centre, spent $12 million to upgrade in Albert Park last year.
And when the opportunity to buy the unrenovated home next door came up at auction today, the chance to expand appeared presumably irresistible.
There were just the two bidders, with local onlookers suggesting the new neighbour may have triumphed.
No confirmation from the selling agent Warwick Gardiner of Greg Hocking Holdsworth after the 302 square metre property sold for $4.21 million, well in excess of the anticipated $3 million plus expectations.
A Victorian double-fronted, was marketed as the last unrenovated property in the trophy home square.
Built in 1867, it originally was one of only three houses in the block between Montague Street and Merton Place, its first owner/occupier sailor, William Whitmore. It last sold around eight decades ago.
Harris sits in 40th place on the BRW Rich List with an estimated $975 million net worth.
His $12 million purchase was of Hollyford, the much admired 1873 neighbouring residence, (pictured below) holds the mantle of the suburb's top sale.
Hollyford was built about 17 years after St Vincent Place was laid out, modelled on the English idea of houses clustered around its central landscaped gardens.
The heritage listed St Vincent Place home comes with rear Nicolas Murray-designed extension on its 480 square metre block.
The project involved restoring the front four rooms of an Italianate Victorian double fronted house along with a full width linear pond which marks the transition to the modern more informal living spaces which flows onto the garden and lap pool.
It previously sold in 2002 at around $2.2 million.
Hollyford, which has its 1873 construction date on its gorgeous vined facade, was the home of the mariner, Thomas Mowbray Hutchinson, according to the land title documents that Property Observer has researched. He owned the holding from 1867 to 1875, there with his wife, Honora and six children. He died in 1888 in Chusan Street, St Kilda with a subsequent 1899 court case over his estate.
Then pawn broker James Healy owned Hollyford for just 14 months. The Hammond family held the property from December 1876 until its sale to the Ryan family from Tipperary in 1899. It seems they gave the house its name as Hollyford is a small village in County Tipperary. The best known family member was George Ryan, who died in 1986, and was old enough to recall the picket fence left over from St Vincent Place's days as a racecourse. The Ryans sold around 2002.
Harris quit full-time duties at Flight Centre in 1998, and left the board in 2008. He remains a large shareholder of the company and has had subsequent success with Retail Zoo, the company behind Boost Juice and Salsas Fresh Mex Grill.
His redundant Albert Park abode for $5,808,000, a five bedroom, tri-level Kerferd Road house.
He bought premises in inner Melbourne Collingwood which has been now rented out at $5 a year to the Reach Foundation, and then in 2013 the Victorian-era Collingwood former bordello building, Cromwell Manor, was made available to STREAT, an organisation that trains and employs homeless young people, for just $5 a year for the 50 years. Cromwell House was bought for $2,585,000.