Vino Del Mar, the Clifton Gardens Spanish Mission home sells again

Vino Del Mar, the 1936 Spanish Mission home in Clifton Gardens, has been sold.

No price disclosure, but the last price guidance had been around $4.5 million for the house above Chowder Bay beach.

Its interiors feature soaring ceilings, timber beams, wrought-iron chandeliers, polished tallow-wood floors, solid timber doors and classical french windows.

Its stone-flagged terraces and mosaic-tiled pool are a touch of old Hollywood glamour.

The Morella Road house on 700 square metres was one of five designed by architect Allan Stafford after he returned to Sydney from California.

It was built for George Eckblade, managing director of Wrigley's Australia, and his wife, Helen.

Stafford had just returned from California where he was inspired by Spanish colonial architecture featuring white-washed stucco walls and terracotta roof tiles.

Originally named El Antonio, the house was a labour of love for the Eckblades taking some seven years to complete.

Title Tattle first recalls its being sold in 1988 for $875,000 when bought from barrister Edward St John QC and wife Valerie. St John, who died in 1994, was the maverick federal member for Warringah elected in 1966 against Jim McClelland, beaten in 1969 by the Michael Mackellar, having quit the Liberal Party several months earlier in a dispute over prime minister John Gorton's suitability to lead the country. Michael Mackellar died just earlier this year. 

It had been the St Johns' home since paying 16,000 pounds in 1960.

Not sure just when it got its name, Vino Del Mar but Vino Del Mar's latest vendors were the Molloys' who listed through Belle Property's Tim Foote and Mark Jackson after just two years.

They bought for $4.5 million from the cinematographer Peter Menzies jnr and his producer-business manager wife, Denise Heffley Menzies, who were always reminded of Chateau Marmont hotel in the Hollywood Hills.

They had bought the property for $4,021,000 in 2008 from retired television commercial producer Maggie Lewis and her husband, Graeme Walker who returned to New Zealand.