Loch Maree, the Dysart-designed Vaucluse harbourfront seeks third owner

Loch Maree, the Dysart-designed Vaucluse harbourfront seeks third owner
Jonathan ChancellorFebruary 6, 2021

The Vaucluse waterfront trophy home, Loch Maree, home of entrepreneur Duncan Saville and wife Julie, has been relisted.

Sotheby's agent Michael Pallier and BradfieldCleary's Bob Guth initially had $30 million-plus hopes in 2012, then $25 million. Now still $25 million.

The Saville family's 2311-square-metre Vaucluse waterfront estate comes with a vast modernist mansion built in the early 1970s for the late Gordon Barton, founder of IPEC.

Designed by architect Michael Dysart, it has had only two owners since it was built.

After Barton experienced financial troubles, the property sold in 1993 for $4.75 million after being on the market for three years.

Hidden from view by established gardens, the property has two entrances, Loch Maree Place and Coolong Road.

It comes with self-contained staff accommodation, a floodlit north-south tennis court, a pool, a simulated golf driving range, garaging for six cars, and a boat shed.

The original Loch Maree - which up to the 1950s was a private girls' school - was owned by society photographer Joe Fallon and wife, Desiree.

Title Tattle recalls Fallon became friendly with Prince Philip, who even bunked down in the historic limed-redwood boathouse. 

The Queen and Prince Philip in 1954 officially visited the nearby Albert family's Coolong Road house. 

On February 2, 1954, the Sydney Morning Herald noted that the Duke "slipped away unofficially" with three of his staff to visit his old mate. 

Three days later, the Herald reported the Duke's return visit to Fallon's place where, with 50 other guests, he spent much of the evening swimming in a floodlit pool and listening to the Hawaiian guitars entertainment. 

As Prince Philip of Greece, the Duke had been there before, Valerie Lawson wrote many years later in the SMH.

In 1946, as a young naval lieutenant, the then yet to marry Philip met Fallon, who lent him the redwood boating shed at Loch Maree.

Fallon subdivided the property and sold a large waterfront to the diamond merchant Albert Joris.

Joris in turn sold it to Gordon Barton in 1966, who remained in Morella Place, Castle Cove, until the Michael Dysart-designed residence was completed in 1972 at a cost of $280,000. 

Jonathan Chancellor

Jonathan Chancellor is one of Australia's most respected property journalists, having been at the top of the game since the early 1980s. Jonathan co-founded the property industry website Property Observer and has written for national and international publications.

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