Elaine, John B Fairfax's long redundant Double Bay harbourfront listed with record price hopes
It sits on Seven Shillings Beach.
But the businessman John B Fairfax who has listed the Double Bay harbourfront estate, Elaine (pictured below) has loftier record price expectations.
An international marketing campaign will be undertaken for the blueblood establishment businessman next year by Christies International Real Estate.
The six-title offering of 6,900 square metres, at 550 New South Head Road, (highlighted below), has been in the publishing family for 100 plus years, but tenanted over the past two decades by the prudent Edgecliff based publisher and pastoralist.
Sydney's official record price stands with Altona in Point Piper, with RP Data records indicating a $52 million sale earlier this year. Villa Veneto, also at Point Piper, is reputed to have sold for around $52 million in 2010, but without confirmatory documentation. The $57.5 million Australian price record was a multi-dwelling Mosman Park compound on the Swan River in Perth in 2009.
Elaine has been traded or handed down within the Fairfax family since bought by Geoffrey Evan Fairfax for 2,100 pounds. Often its been featured in the high society social pages.
It was 1989 when John B. Fairfax bought the bulk of the Elaine estate for $3 million from his father, Sir Vincent Fairfax.
The circa-1870 residence had been Sir Vincent and Lady (Nancy) Fairfax's home since it was traded internally for 19,000 pound in 1936. It was said the family instilled their children with "a sense of public duty and obligation, as people to whom much had been given, to give much back in return."
Woollahra Council records suggest it was built for William Francis Norie. The house is surrounded by five 100 year old trees.
The 1995 Woollahra Council local environment plan schedule three heritage items listed Elaine – "house, gateposts and gate, gardens to the foreshore, stoneworks, Cook Pine, Norfolk Island Pine, Bunya Pine, Camphor Laurel, Port Jackson Fig, Seven Shillings Beach."
"This is the most significant charming listing ever to hit the market in Australia," Ken Jacobs of Christies International Real Estate told Property Observer.
It has an estimated 53-metre beach frontage.
Socialite Elizabeth de Fox and medico husband David were the first tenants to lease Elaine, after John B Fairfax decided not to take up residency when his mother, Lady (Nancy) Fairfax, moved to Point Piper.
The Foxes were paying $1666 a week rent for Elaine in 1995.
By late 1996, Bob and Margaret Rose had secured the premises, paying $2800 a week.
In 2000 they were paying $4000 a week.
Then in 2005 venture capitalist Cameron O'Reilly, the former media industry player, moved in, paying $6300 a week.
Its most recent tenants have been the joint chief investment officer of Caledonia Investments, Mark Nelson, and his wife, Louise.
Elaine sits next to Fairwater, the much more high-profile home of Lady (Mary) Fairfax, and the expanded Woollahra Council headquarters holding with its heritage library, St Brigid's.
While not dismissing its record setting likelihood, speculation the property could fetch $100 million has been dismissed by respected property analysts sought out by Property Observer.
The property last hit the headlines in early 2009 when News Ltd papers reported John B Fairfax, the then largest shareholder of the ailing Fairfax Media group, had taken out a mortgage on his family's landmark estate on Sydney Harbour as the global financial crisis aftermath took its toll amid margin loan calls.
He severed his ties with the media empire that bears his name by selling his 9.7% stake in late 2011 for $193 million.
Never moving back into his childhood home, John B Fairfax resides at an Edgecliff house which cost $2.94 million in 1991.
No one yet claims the Elaine naming rights, but the name Seven Shillings Beach stems from the price secured by the Aboriginal leader, Gurrah who sold his fishing rights on the beach to William Busby, who had also bought nearby Redleaf.
