Point Piper's Altona sails into second place with $60 million sale to Huang family

Altona, the quietened former Sydney harbourfront party home in Point Piper, has new owners. 

No price disclosure but Altona was offered as likely to fetch $60 million plus, so the sale fell short of the Sydney record set when the casino tycoon James Packer secured $70 million at Vaucluse last year.

The low-key vendors, the Wang family had bought the prized harbourfront home for $52 million in 2013, so with few only minor renovations have made a handy profit.

Late this week the Huang family placed a caveat on the property's title following their purchase. It is understood they live in Hunters Hill.

Its sale negotiations concluded quickly as there was no requirement for Foreign Investment Review Board approval by the resident Australians.

The iconic Victorian Italianate home sits on a 2400 sq m holding after a proposed subdivision sale of the vacant $18 million tennis court block did not proceed after neighbourhood objections. 

The previous owners include Deke Miskin, a former teenage magazine publishing industry entreprenuer, and his wife Eve who hosted many social events as did the Handbury family during their tenure.

A who's who have thought about owning it including actor Russell Crowe who looked at buying it too in 2007 as did the Lowy shopping centre family. 

The harbourside home is on Wunulla Road, just a few doors along from the home of the Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull and wife, Lucy.

Altona was listed with it limited web marketing in June this year through Rosaline Ho of Goldfield & Co with more than 10 potential buyers eventually shown through the iconic home with Dods & Zuccon Architects re-design.

Sydney's priciest trophy home sale remains the $70 million secured last year by James and Erica Packer through Christie's International agent Ken Jacobs when it was sold to longtime Hunters Hill owner and Chinese billionaire Dr Chau Chak Wing. 

The whisper quiet Altona sale reduces the options to buy impressive eastern suburb waterfronts by one.

As spring listings turn into summer offerings, agents still have Berthong and Boomerang at Elizabeth Bay and Elaine at Double Bay for sale.

The prestige inland offerings include Rona at Bellevue Hill.

There's a raft of houses sitting in equal third place.

The magnificent European-style Villa Igiea was sold for a confirmed $52 million by entrepreneurial expat Dr Wayne Burt in the final hours of 2015 across international time zones. 

The hillside mansion, inspired by a villa in Palermo, Sicily, dates back to the 1920s when built for the Grace retailing family. It has become one of Sydney’s leading short-term luxury rentals, currently occupied by Texan billionaire Jim Clark and his model wife Kristy Hinze-Clark as their Sydney to Hobart race-winning bolthole.

The sale was $47 million for the house and $5 million for the adjoining property.

The bullish Villa Igiea price was secured by Ken Jacobs at Christie’s International and Brad Pillinger at Pillinger Properties, who has had a hand in the 2200sqm property’s sale three times. 

Altona had previously sold at $52 million three years ago, through Alison Coopes, who was back as a listing agent this time.

Also at $52 million, Andrew and Andrea Banks sold Villa Veneto for a reported $52 million, in 2010 to dental entrepreneur David Penn and his wife Linda Mueller, a Lowes Manhattan heiress, who had made their initial inspection two years earlier.

Sold through Bill Malouf, the five-storey Italianate villa was designed by Michael Suttor, with interiors by Michael Love, and was completed in 2004 having cost about $15 million to build. 

In fifth place, the 2008 expatriate foreign exchange dealer Ivan Ritossa paid $45 million for his beachfront  Vaucluse residence via agent Bill Bridges.

Actor Russell Crowe had inspected the house twice but passed when it was listed by late Allco boss David Coe. 

He had bought it in 1998 for $14.63 million after the death of Sir Alexis Albert, of the Boomerang music songbook family, who built it in 1936.

The Queen popped in for afternoon tea on her 1954 visit.

This article first appeared in the Saturday Daily Telegraph.