Andrew Ipkendanz officially lists his organic Sydney Harbour home with bespoke trimmings

Carrara Road, a small special strip with just the 13 houses above the Hermitage Reserve at Vaucluse, comes with three home owners who've undertaken two-block consolidations.

Mitsui, the Japanese trading company, has been there since it paid $1.75 million in 1985.

Then there's the nearby Mediterranean-style house set on 1,603 square metres, and known as Carrara, that last sold in 2010 at $26.75 million, reflecting around $17,000 a square metre land value. Title Tattle recalls the house cost $2 million in 1985 and then the tennis court block was bought for $2.775 million in 1987. 

And then lastly the SW3-based expatriate financier Andrew Ipkendanz spent $10.6 million in 1997 to consolidate his 1966 square metre holding on Carrara Road. 

Ipkendanz is only just completing the bespoke home, and has decided he will remain in London with his Brazilian wife, Mariana.

It is a Peter Stutchbury-designed abode (pictured above) sited on a sandstone footing that integrates into its environment. Apart from structural concrete, the home has been constructed using natural materials including sandstone, copper, natural stone and indigenous hardwoods such as cedar and spotted gum.

Set over four levels with a lift, the property comes with more than 2,000 square metres of internal space with seven bedrooms, office, parent's suite, vast formal and informal living areas, guest quarters, games room, his and hers change rooms, 20-metre swimming pool, plus boatshed, and garaging for five cars.

“I first saw the site by boat," Ipkendanz says.

"I knew then that I wanted to build the most beautiful home on Sydney Harbour and it would be here.

"I sourced a team of the best from all over the world.

"My brief was to create the most architecturally significant house on Sydney Harbour.

"We planned every centimetre of its 2,000 plus square metres to the last nail.

"Then we began to build.

"It has been seven years," he noted.

Its listing agent Alison Coopes forecasts the home will not be matched for a very long time, "if ever.” 

The 6 Carrara Road marketing campaign that kicked off today bills it as "Australia's finest property" which presumably is an indicator as to its undisclosed ambitious price expectations.

Coopes remains coy but confident in her objective, underpinned by her recent $52 million sale of Altona, the Point Piper harbourfront.

It will certainly set a Vaucluse record which has long been with Coolong, the dated beachfront residence of expats Ivan and Marina Ritossa who paid a then $45 million Sydney record price in 2008 buying from the late Allco founder David Coe through agents Bill Bridges and Hamish Robertson.

Coolong with private beach was built for Sir Alexis Albert, from the Boomerang music songbook family, on the 4,100 square metre block in 1936. Its last price represented $11,250 a square metre.

Since earlier this year, Sydney's Altona has held the record as Australia's priciest home. The harbourfront house in Point Piper fetched $52 million when sold through Coopes by Deke and Eve Miskin to a Chinese family, who currently have tradespeople at the eight-bedroom, seven-bathroom house on Wunulla Road. The Altona price reflected $20,000 a square metre land value. The subsequent nearby Bang & Olufsen house sale on Wolseley Crescent reflected $24,000 a square metre land value.

The runner-up honour most likely sits with Villa Veneto, the harbourfront mansion on Wolseley Road, Point Piper which was sold in 2010 by Andrea Banks, the wife of head hunter Andrew Banks, to the Penn family for around $52 million. The Italianate style five-level mansion was designed by architect Michael Suttor with six-bedroom, nine-bathroom house with a 21-person lift. Set on a 1426 square metre block, its sale price reflected $36,000 a square metre land value.  

Ipkendanz's property portfolio also includes a five-storey, brown-brick terrace, with octagonal corner he purchased on Tedworth Square in London's Chelsea.

Title Tattle recalls it's the next one along from where Mark Twain lived in 1896 when writing Following the Equator.

The book included his Australian tour description of our harbour as the darling of Sydney and the wonder of the world, adding Sydney was an English city with American trimmings.

And if he visited now - international prices too.