Verrocchi family buy Smorgon's Toorak trophy home

The Smorgon family heirs Norman and Tania Smorgon sold their Toorak home late last year, reputedly for around $19.25 million, to Fiona Verrocchi, from the pharmacy family.

They initially wanted $25 million for their trophy home as they undertook repeated sales campaigns.

The latest tender closed mid-December, long after its fanciful October 2013 front page The Age spruik (below) that failed to yield the desired record price. Marshall White agent Marcus Chiminello took over the listing without fanfare about a month before its sale.

Source: The Age, 18 October, 2013

Toorak prices are not always heading positively upwards, despite the best endeavours of estate agents. 

The six bedroom 750 Orrong Road, Toorak estate comes with a tennis court and pool on its 5,450 square metres.

Fiona and Mario Verrocchi currently reside at Caulfield North.

The Smorgons paid $3.05 million in April 1995 for the 1920s home which was sold by the family of the then Polish businessman Abe Goldberg. 

Source: The Age, 18 October, 2013

Goldberg's daughter, Mrs Deborah Lea Furst, paid $3.95 million in 1987, and thought the property had been sold in 1991 for $4.1 million, but Title Tattle recalls the deal unravelled.

Furst's husband, Zev Furst, was briefly a co-director with Abe Goldberg of the textile giant Linter Group, which produced such labels as King Gee, Speedo and Stubbies. It collapsed in early 1990 with debts of around $1.3 billion.

There was talk of a $20 million sale in October this year, but it didn't eventuate. The sale price would need to surpass the $19.8 million paid for the nine-bedroom Avon Court mansion on Shakespeare Grove, Hawthorn in May which holds the year's top sale mantle.

Norman Smorgon heads Escor, their private company that manages the family's interests. 

The Escor Group was created by the family of Eric Smorgon, the late co-founder of Smorgon Consolidated Industries.

Eric Smorgon's grandson is Norman Smorgon. Eric Smorgon's family quit Russia in 1926 to escape Stalin and anti-Semitic sentiment.

They arrived in 1927 at Port Melbourne on the Kommisar Romel, settling in Carlton where young Eric began work as an electrical apprentice.

The $24 million achieved in 2010 by the Baillieu family remains Melbourne's top sale when a St Georges Road trophy estate sold to property developer Harry Stamoulis.

Marshall White selling agent Marcus Chiminello would only confirm its sale, not its reputed sale price.