Alex Popov-designed trophy home listing amid cloudy Bellevue Hill prestige outlook

The Alex Popov-designed Bellevue Hill home of the philanthropic art collector Ray Wilson has been listed for September 9 auction. Its listing comes six years after the death of his partner, James Agapitos.

The house, listed with $4.5 million plus hopes through Alison Coopes, was designed to showcase the pair's substantial art collection. Wilson and Agapitos bought the 930 square metre Bellevue Road property in 1994 for $1.06 million.

Popov designed a two-storey house with whole-floor guest retreat. Wilson and Agapitos’s first collection was broadly based 20th century Australian art after they purchased their first James Gleeson painting.

It's quite an arts precinct too in the neighbourhood as last year the new Art Gallery of NSW chief, Michael Brand, and his wife Tina, bought for $3.2 million for a five-bedroom house on a 700 square metre block.

It, as the then authorative SMH Title Deeds columnist Margie Blok noted, had previously traded for $4.16 million in 2007. And being a know-all, she added it’s not far from the longtime Bellevue Hill home of the former AGNSW boss Edmund Capon and his wife Joanna. 

Addenbrooke, the stately Bellevue Hill mansion, is set to be Sydney's inland trophy home listing for spring.

Its being listed through Sydney Sotheby's International Realty agent Michael Pallier. Property Observer gathers it's set to come with $33 million hopes by the downsizing vendors, Denis and Charlotte O'Neil. There's also a vacant adjacent grassed block of land available for any buyer.

Addenbrooke last traded at its 1988 auction for $5.375 million having been the home of the late Sir Lionel Coppleson, the former hire purchase Custom Credit c0-founding chairman, for close to five decades. He and his surgeon brother, Sir Victor, who was an author of a 1933 book on Australian shark attacks, had grown up in Wee Waa on the Namoi River in northern NSW. Sir Lionel was knighted in 1969.

An earlier auction was in 1930 when it was noted Addenbrooke adjoined the homes of Sir William Vicars and surgeon Sir Charles Clubbe.

The 850-square-metre Cranbrook Road lot that adjoins the property is a level block with a northerly aspect and harbour views. It was purchased in 1994 for $1.25 million from the Consulate General of the Republic of Korea. On its May listing it was noted the land had been valued at $5.75 million. 

There have been 17 house sales above $10 million in Bellevue Hill since 2008, but only one officially recorded last year, according to RP Data, and two this year.

Elsewhere on Cranbrook Road, there is a two level residence designed by renowned 1960s architect Henry Pollack listed through Ray White.

Former Challenger Financial chief executive and Orica director Mike Tilley secured $8.5 million for his Bellevue Hill home, exactly $100,000 more than the $8.4 million price he paid in 2005 for the 1,286 square metre property. The AFR suggested he spent around $3?million on upgrades to the property. TItle Tattle recalls the former Toorak banker who came up from Melbourne to work for the Packer family had renovated the residence showcasing French Moderne interiors by designer Sally Greenaway. Its been bought by American software guru Jim Clody after reportedly selling his 138 Victoria Road property for $5.45?million. Clody had paid $5?million in 2007 to the McWilliam family.

Drumalbyn Road has been among the most active roads with a $10.3 million sale recently to the Kaye family by the quick exiters, the Scali family - Nicodemo and Johanna - who'd spent $9.5 million to buy it from the Malouf family in early 2012.  Designed by Bruce Stafford Architects, the 1,143 sq m holding comes with northerly harbour views. Drumalbyn's latest intending departees are the Hammerschlag family.

The biggest sale so far this year was when the neighbouring Cranbrook School paid $15.501 million to secure the former Bellevue Hill matrimonial home of the late transport tycoon Sir Peter Abeles. The 2549 square metre land was originally part of the Cranbrook estate -- now home to the private school for boys -- which was subdivided in 1917. Sundorne, the 1925 house (pictured below) sold at $15,501,000 when offered at its onsite auction after being listed with $11 million-plus hopes. There was only competition from a North Shore family after the 2A zoned property was announced on the market at around $11.5 million.

The school council president Dr Helen Nugent and treasurer Geoff Kimpton were in attendance at the very damp invitation only auction, accompanied by Sydney lawyer, Bruce McWilliam. They seemed to adopt the school motto, Esse Quam Videri which translates from Latin to "to be rather than to seem to be".

The acquisition (see red below) with crown land portion (green triangle) is across the road from the school (large green space below) on the corner of Victoria Road and Rose Bay Avenue, which was known as Gallipoli Avenue until 1926.

Cranbrook School (pictured below) was founded in 1918 through the generous benefaction of a small number of supporters. On 1 December 1917, the former private home and vice-regal residence, Cranbrook, was listed by the NSW Government and bought at auction by an agent for Samuel Hordern, the main financial benefactor of a group of businessmen and churchmen aiming to establish an Anglican boys' school in the Eastern Suburbs.

The 1859 sandstone Cranbrook residence built for the Tooth brewery family and then owned by the White pastoralist family from 1873.

It served as the abode of the NSW Governor between 1900 and 1917.

The first headmaster, Rev. F T Perkins opened the school in July 1918.

The property presented a rare opportunity as it last sold 45 years ago, had also been sold in the 1917 government subdivision sell-off.

Sundorne, the well-hidden Tudor style six-bedroom Victoria Road mansion, was bought from the well-connected establishment Simpson lawyer family in 1958 through Sir Peter's company P.A. Holdings Pty Ltd for about £60,000.

The block was purchased in 1917 by Edward Percy Simpson, who commissioned architect CA Millyard to build Sundorne in 1925 as a wedding present for his son, Edward Telford Simpson.