Bank of America boss Matthew Koder buys Bellevue Hill trophy home market
Matthew Koder, the expatriate Asia Pacific president at Bank of America Merrill Lynch, is tipped to emerge as the mystery $19 million buyer of the Bellevue Hill mansion, Donnington Grange.
With its so-called classic neo-Georgian pedigree, it was among the freshest and priciest of Bellevue Hill listings.
Title Tattle recalls Bank of America's head of Asia Pacific global corporate and investment bank was poached several years ago from UBS. Koder had started out at Goldman Sachs in the mid-1990s, after a commerce degree from the University of New South Wales with first class honors in finance.
The reputed sale price went close to Angela Fleming's $20 million hopes. Ranking as the year's highest trophy mansion sale, it is now expected to become available in the executive rental pool given the Koder family are not expected to take up occupancy for several years. Koder's Hong Kong born wife Shanyan (霍尚欣) founded London's Hua Gallery of contemporary Chinese art.
It was 2005 when the late grocery tycoon Jim Fleming and his wife, Angela paid $16.5 million for the Bellevue Hill residence, a pricey sale at a time when a pall was evident over most of the Sydney market.
The 1,842-square metre Drumalbyn Road estate (pictured above), with eight bedrooms, 10-bathroom house and 10-car underground garaging, was sold through LJ Hooker agent Bill Malouf and Sophie Beaumont, in conjunction with Sydney Sothebys International. It was built for the Rubenstein family before its sale to the Flemings.
Last October Property Observer reported Angela Fleming bought mining executive Ian Stolyar's Point Piper apartment for $12.3 million from the mortgagee-in-possession.
No price details have emerged on another major Bellevue Hill sale just nearby with NAB Wealth management executive Greg Symons buying from the Cosgrove family. It was very much an off market deal.
In the dress circle of Bellevue Hill, Sydney’s most prestigious non-waterfront suburb, another magnificent heritage home, known as Rovello is whispered to have been snappily sold by the Darling family - also without price disclosure after the expressions of interest marketing campaign concluded March 28. Title Tattle is aware of an $18 million offer made from bottom feeding wise buying interests so, $20 million plus must have been achieved.
Set on the highest point of Bellevue Hill and facing north over Sydney Harbour, Rovello was built for Dr Vincent Flynn and wife, Jean Flynn, a great-niece of George Adams, the founder of Tattersall’s Sweepstake. A trust fund established some years after the 1881 introduction of Tattersall’s sweepstake generated vast wealth for the Adams family.
Flynn chose a site on Ginahgulla Road, considered one of the suburb’s finest streets, as the location for her new home. And then she commissioned Wilson, Neave and Berry to design the house in the colonial Georgian revival style favoured by Hardy Wilson who was the company’s leading architect.
Barford, another residence designed by Wilson, Neave and Berry, the leading architectural firm of the 1920s and 1930s era remains listed. Rovello had $20 million price hopes. Barford comes with $60 million price expectations. With double digit millions price tags, these grand residences have fascinating histories linked to prominent Australian families. Their hertitage status doesn't preclude further contemporary living renovations, as the recent He said She Said column advised Property Observer readers.
With a $3.23 million median house price, Bellevue Hill is among the highest in the country. But its median house price is still below its $3.92 million peak in 2010 and 6% below five years ago.
The tobacco chief David Crow has meanwhile bought in Bellevue Hill paying about $11.75 million for the home of former Network Nine senior executive Lynton Taylor and his wife, Ros.
The redundant 1920s Rose Bay home of Crow, the chief executive of British American Tobacco Australia, and his wife, Lucinda has snappily sold on Beresford Road at apparently just under $7.5 million.
One of Bellevue Hill's oldest families, the Ure family has listed "Kells", their 1924 home. The grand Californian bungalow was once the childhood home of R.M. Ure, the government architect who designed the Reserve Bank building on Martin Place.
The eight-bedroom Lamb Street property has been listed for April 7 through 1st City-Hasemer+Caldwell.Eyles with $3.7 million plus hopes.
The 1910 LU Simon residence of publicist Judi Hausmann is apparently for sale - and may have even sold snappily - with $8 million plus hopes, although her estate agency appears slow on the emergence of the internet as a marketing means.
The 1338 square metre Kambala Road property comes with pool and tennis court.
It was bought from Hong Kong-based businessman Greg Jones and his wife, Kim, in 2004 for $5,875,000 who had paid the fashion designer Rebecca Davies $5,275,000 for it in 2002. Hausmann is off to The Plantation House in Darling Point.
Speaking of fashion designers, Camilla Freeman-Topper and her husband Dave secured $4.65 million late last year through Ray White Double Bay agents Ashley Bierman and Elliott Placks for their Bellevue Hill abode.
The battle-axe Cranbrook Road property had been bought in 2009 for $3,275,000, and then renovated and extended. There were hopes of about $4.5 million.
Indonesian media mogul Eddy Sariaatmadja and his wife, Sofie, have their 1,619-square-metre Ginahgulla Road, Bellevue Hill property for sale.
It was bought in 2009 for $14.5 million. The now-gutted house with approved plans has $15 million plus hopes by Sariaatmadja, who owns Indonesia's second-largest media group, Emtek.
Willowbrook, the reinvented Georgian property with a substantial rebuild done by architects Lawton Hurley, sold for $11 million last year to the Prosser family, contradicting the over the top Fairfax Media estimates of $12 million.
Viewless Willowbank, a five bedroom Bellevue Hill trophy home (pictured below), was sold by Mark Greig, son of the late cricket commentator Tony Greig and his wife, Angela Roche, through Sotheby's International Realty Sydney agent James McCowan. The 858 square metre property previously sold at $5.75 million in 2007 when bought from Peter Kendall.
The 1930s Georgian home was re-built 2009 by architects Lawton Hurley with interiors by designer Lynda Kerry in grounds landscaped by William Dangar. The Hamptons-style house comes with mosaic-tiled heated pool and spa with cabana and the semi-enclosed deck with built-in outdoor kitchen.
Addenbrooke, the stately Bellevue Hill trophy home, was the prestige suburb's last big sale at $28 million last year. Addenbrooke last traded at its 1988 auction for $5.375 million having been the home of the late Sir Lionel Coppleson, the former hire purchase Custom Credit co-founding chairman, for close to five decades.
The $28 million sale exceded the suburb's prior record which stood at $23 million for Lachlan Murdoch's Le Manoir purchase in 2009 and the also sale of 84 Victoria Road in 2010 for $23 million. There have been another three sales above $20 million, including Rona in 2005 at $20.5 million.
Another of last year's big sale was when Cranbrook School paid $15,501,000 under the hammer in May for the former home of Sir Peter Abeles, Sundorne.
Yoorami remains for sale through Martin Schiller at Savills. Yachtie Matt Allen, a veteran of more than 20 Rolex Sydney Hobart Yacht Races, is off to the late Sir William Tyree"s Darling Point harbour front. It was 1996 when the Potter Warburg executive Matt Allen spent $5.65 million sale to buy the Yoorami Estate in Bellevue Hill from the barrister Geraldine Vandeleur, wife of silk Charles Sweeney.
Sir William Tyree was the founder of a 1940s electrical transformer manufacturing company.
Matt Allen's most famous Sydney to Hobart skippering has been of Ichi Ban, which has variously been a Sydney 38 OD, a Farr 40 OD and a Jones 70 ocean racer. He is the former Cruising Yacht Club of Australia commodore.
Sir William - who briefly dabbled in FM radio licences in the late 1970s - was knighted in 1971 for philanthropic services.
In the early 1990s Sir William successfully resisted attempts by Woollahra Council to turn his foreshore land, which has unrivalled boating facilities, into a harbourfront open space linking to nearby McKell Park.
Sir William engaged three agents to find its buyer in August 2011. A dispute over the selling agency commission has been whispered.