Neville Crichton mulls $60 million plus offer in Point Piper

It's not just Aussie John Symond's Point Piper home that's available to buy.

His neighbour, the luxury car dealer Neville “Croaky” Crichton is mulling over unsolicited offers for his trophy home.

The latest offer is reputedly at $60 million. 

Compared with the Symond mansion, Crichton's pad on Wingadal Place looks like a Tuscan version of a dower house. It's a three-storey, six bedroom home, with a gym, cellar and workshop, in the Tuscan style. 

He recently joked if a burglar broke into his house “they’d look around and say, ‘you need a bit of help, here’s some money’.”

Crichton has engaged Auckland-based designers Swan Railley Clapham to build a new residence on the Point Piper site he bought for $5.9 million from the Rose family in 1994.

Crichton was spotted recently spotted sitting in the back row of an auction, with his partner, when a Darling Point apartment sold for $6.3 million to a local buyer from China.

But he never raised his bidding card for the Thornton Street 1970s timewarp (above) - which was offered through Michael Dunn, of Richardson & Wrench Double Bay.

It looked like something from an Austin Powers movie set complete with garish blue living room with built-in fish tank, green dining capsule room, and orange themed living space.

Born in 1945 on a farm on New Zealand’s South Island, Crichton began buying cheap bicycles, tarting them up and selling them for enough profit to buy his first sailing boat at 12 year old. 

Crichton, whose Alfa Romeo won the 2009 Sydney-Hobart, hit the headlines in 2011 when his Point Piper harbourfront was rented by the Microsoft founder Bill Gates who flew into Sydney with his family for some Christmas holiday downtime.

Sources said the family paid about $25,000 a week to stay at the home.

This article was first published in the Sunday Telegraph.