Yerroublin, Birchgrove harbourfront sold by Masterman family

Yerroublin, the Masterman family home at Birchgrove, has been sold after being marketed with $5.5 million hopes.

The 1913 waterfront Federation with original sandstone caves has four bedrooms, three bathrooms and a self-contained apartment.

Set on 719 sqm, the wraparound deck overlooks the garden with views across the Sydney harbour.

It's been in the Masterman family for over 50 years, offered to the market last month by Blah Blah Magazine blogger Cybele Masterman, who inherited it about 22 years ago.

Her father Nick Masterman was a renowned Balmain boat maker who built his first boat when he was just 13 and went on to become a foundation member of Snails Bay Sabot Sailing Club in 1962.

Nick took up an apprenticeship at Cockatoo Dock, where he was exposed to asbestos fibres. He won a rotary scholarship to Japan as a naval architect and was instrumental in reviving the Balmain Sailing Club and setting up the Balmain Sailing School.

One of Nick's greatest accomplishments was bringing Ena, one of Sydney's most elegant steamboats, back to her original grace and style. Nick was a Greens Leichhardt Council alderman between 1991 and 1993. He died in 1994 of mesothelioma.

One of those last remaining Federation homes at the northern end of the peninsula had been subdivided in 1978, selling half to the late ABC television producer Bruce Allen and his wife, former Leichhardt councillor Helen Styles.

This neighbouring semi was sold by Allen and Styles in 1996 for $1.15 million to medico Richard Levy and his wife Elizabeth who considered selling it all in one line earlier this year.

As a combined lot the Levys and Masterman were hoping to sell the 1337 square metre property for $11 million, but McGrath agent John Paranchi didn't get the double sale across the line.

This article was first published in the Sunday Telegraph.