James Packer cashes out of Sydney with Woollahra sale
The billionaire James Packer cashed out his personal property holdings in Sydney at auction last night when his last property was sold for $8,375,000.
The plush Woollahra residence was once part of a family compound amalgamated in the 1960s by the late media tycoon Kerry Packer.
His late father offered them to family and friends in need.
The two-storey house has been home to Gretel Packer’s friend Georgia Moxham and her husband Paul Stenmark.
The dress circle Rosemont Avenue property was bought in 1965 for £36,000.
It was briefly considered as a potential matrimonial home by James and his former wife Erica more than a decade ago, but the then-newlyweds instead built the Vaucluse mega-mansion La Mer.
The sale ends Packer's real estate ties with his hometown, barring the forthcoming $60 million off the plan purchase in his Barangaroo casino high-rise block.
In August, he sold his Bondi Beach bachelor pad for $29 million.
La Mer was sold in 2015 for $70 million.
Packer now calls the west coast of United States his home after he paid $82 million for the Beverly Hills mansion once owned by Danny DeVito and his wife, actor Rhea Perlman.
His mother Ros remains at Cairnton, the family compound on Bellevue Hill, which was initially secured by the late Sir Frank Packer in 1935 for £7,500.
Then Sir Frank, in five separate purchases, spent more than £28,000 pounds expanding Cairnton.
His sister Gretel lives nearby, and retains the Palm Beach weekender which Kerry Packer bought for $1 million in 1981.
This article first appeared in The Daily Telegraph.