Former Beckwith trophy home at Dalkeith under offer

One of Perth's true trophy homes, a 1980s Palladian villa at Dalkeith, is under contract after having $20 million hopes. 

It was listed by livestock exporting Wellard's CEO and managing director Mauro Balzarini and his wife, Giovanna Boventi, who paid $12.25 million for the two-storey gabled Tudor-style mansion in 2006.

Built with pale sandstone walls and terracotta roofs, selling agent William Porteous described it as "the epitome of European elegance."

The entrance hall is crowned by a domed cupola framing an antique French chandelier sourced from a Russian palace.

The 4.05 hectare estate is no longer a riverfront as it was when built over four years in the late 1980s by the late Bond Corp executive Peter Beckwith, at a reported cost of $9 million.

The Jutland Parade property first sold for a record $8.5 million in 1996 by Beckwith's widow Valerie, after she struck a deed of settlement with his bankruptcy administrators.

It was bought by shopping centre developer Jack Bendat, who sold it in 1999 for $9.15 million to accountant Michael Boyd who divided the estate, selling the riverfront croquet garden for $5.6 million in 2004 and the house for $7 million in 2005.

The former Bond Corp chief lived in it for only a short time before he died from a brain tumour in 1990. 

This article was first published in the Weekend Australian Mansion Australia property section.