Rovello, the 1930s Bellevue Hill trophy home sold to local family

Sarah Henry, wife of engineering company boss Rupert Henry, has emerged as the mystery $20.5 million buyer of the Bellevue Hill trophy home, Rovello.

The house sold in March on extended settlement terms to the Henry family.

The family recently sold their $7.8 million redundant Bellevue Hill home through Sotheby's International agent James McGowan to Chinese buyers who are seeking $2000 a week rental.

Henry, the St Marys-based Allmen Engineering boss, fleetingly looked at the former estate of Sir Peter Abeles last year. The family maintain a Palm Beach weekender.

In the dress circle of Bellevue Hill, Sydney’s most prestigious non-harbourfront suburb, Rovello was designed by Wilson, Neave and Berry, the leading architectural firm of the 1920s and 1930s era.

The superbly proportioned circa 1937 two-storey residence is described by the Australian Heritage Commission as "probably Wilson, Neave and Berry’s finest extant piece of architecture".

Set on the highest point of Bellevue Hill and facing north over Sydney Harbour, Rovello was built for Dr Vincent Flynn and wife, Jean Flynn, a great-niece of George Adams, the founder of Tattersall’s Sweepstake. A trust fund established some years after the 1881 introduction of Tattersall’s sweepstake generated vast wealth for the Adams family.

Rovello remained in the hands of Flynn’s family until it was bought by the property developer John Lyons, who sold it in the mid-1980s to the merchant banker James Yonge for $3.45 million in 1986. Yonge sold it for $8.24 million in 1991 through eastern suburbs estate agent Jane Ashton to the current owners, Michael Darling and his wife Manuela Darling-Gansser.

Centred around a courtyard modelled on the colonnaded Roman atriums, the house stands on more than 2,800 square metres of grounds with a tennis court, swimming pool, sweeping lawns and sun-drenched terraces. From the property are panoramic northerly views to Manly and The Heads, as well as westerly views to the Harbour Bridge. 

Echoing its Mediterranean name, the traditional Italian-style villa has two wings enclosing a large pergola and an enclosed loggia.  Featuring wide windows framed with elegant external shutters, Rovello has an impressive two-storey entrance hall and 675 square metres of living space including stately living, dining and entertaining areas opening onto the north-facing terrace. Howard Tanner oversaw its last renovation.

Featuring a gracious provincial-style marble kitchen, the five bedroom, five bathroom residence also has a self-contained apartments, a state of the art pilates studio and a steam room. The exercise area and steam room was added in the last five years designed by architect Nick Tobias.

Not surprisingly, the cooking and food storage areas are a feature of the house, as Manuela is a food author. An unusual feature is a ground floor flower room - which was apparently a fashionable inclusion of the time.

Also reflecting Mediterranean style are the gardens, which were re-designed in 2006 by leading landscape architect, Myles Baldwin. Featuring old stone walls, a parterre garden and a vegetable garden, the grounds have wide terraces leading to sweeping lawns and the tennis court. The garden now follows the traditional pattern for major Italian houses with a sequence of terraces - the main living terrace outside the house, the parterre below it, the water garden (in this case a swimming pool) and then the park.

With price expectations around $20 million, Rovello was for sale by expressions of interest closing March this year through Ray White Double Bay agents, Elliott Placks and Ashley Bierman.

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It was 2011 when Michael Darling, the former chairman of Caledonia Investments and scion of the establishment pastoral and mining family, and his wife, Manuela Darling-Gansser, spent $14 million to buy a prized oceanfront North Bondi Beach residential building site.

The somewhat neglected five-storey apartment block has been designed as a luxury condominium compound for the family.

Set on the rock shelf known as Mermaid Rocks on the ocean shore at North Bondi, the building's remodelling has been undertaken by Nick Tobias.

Michel Darling, the urbane Oxford and Harvard educated businessman is regarded as one of Australia’s savviest investors, having sold the family’s 41% equity in the finance house Clayton Robard for about $200 million shortly before the 1987 stock market crash.

Darling, a descendent of the pioneer John Darling and the son of long-time BHP director L Gordon Darling, was a McKinsey & Company consultant in the mid-1970s. He once climbed Mount Everest as far as Camp Three.

From 1979 to 1987 he was managing director of Clayton Robard Limited, the funds management and life insurance group. In his seven years as managing director he oversaw a lift in its asset values from $3 million to $350 million.