Architect William Smart secures $7,905,000 for Surry Hills home-office

Architect William Smart secures $7,905,000 for Surry Hills home-office
Jonathan ChancellorDecember 7, 2020

William Smart secured $7,905,000 when his Surry Hills home-office sold at its auction yesterday.

The listing came about because he is relocating his eponymous Smart Design Studio HQ to Alexandria.

It was bought by the Point Piper-based Rubicon Property Trust founder Gordon Fell, who is asking $55 million for his Point Piper waterfront, according to a subsequent report by the Wentworth Courier.

The Oxford Agency’s Steffan Ippolito had an ­$8 million guide, with bidding coming from three of the registered four bidders. Auctioneer Damien Cooley announced it as on the market at $7.47 million.

Smart and his partner John Adcock have lived above the award-winning studio for more than a ­decade, having bought the double-fronted Bourke St terrace for $1.46 million in 2003 and then spending two years gutting it to create the commercial and ­residential space.

The top-level penthouse apartment has two bedrooms, two bathrooms and a concealed study overlooking Bourke and Ridge Sts.

Architect William Smart secures $7,905,000 for Surry Hills home-office

Smart has been involved in inner-city boutique apartment projects for almost two decades.

Born in New Zealand and raised in rural Western Australia, one of Smart’s first design jobs was on the award-winning Olympic Park railway station.

For the prior five years he worked for Gersau Architecture, a small practice in the south of France, then with Foster and Partners in London.

The avowed modernist has received critical acclaim with awards including the AIA Robin Boyd Award and AIA Wilkinson Awards for Residential Architecture.

Architect William Smart secures $7,905,000 for Surry Hills home-office

Smart’s designs can be found across the inner city and the beach suburbs.

He previously lived at one of his earliest projects, a 40sqm Springfield Ave apartment in Kings Cross. As a first home buyer he paid $223,000 in 2002, selling for $478,000 in 2012. The residence featured in the book 50 Of The World’s Best Apartments.

Smart Design Studio was founded in 1997 and has more than 40 staff. Its ­portfolio has included masterplanned urban centres, multi-unit residential ­developments, and retail and commercial fit-outs, as well as private dwellings including the Kahlbetzer family home Mandalong House in Mosman.

He is best-known for his work on ­Indigo Slam, the Chippendale warehouse residence of Judith Neilson, the art-dealing founder of the White Rabbit Collection.

This article first appeared in the Sunday Telegraph.

Jonathan Chancellor

Jonathan Chancellor is one of Australia's most respected property journalists, having been at the top of the game since the early 1980s. Jonathan co-founded the property industry website Property Observer and has written for national and international publications.

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