More Mort listed on Greenoaks Avenue, Darling Point
Not just Bishopscourt, but another 18th century home of pioneer Thomas Mort in Darling Point has hit the market.
It's the heritage listed 1850 Greenoaks Cottage, set on 1,307 square metres, currently configured as three separate apartments.
There's plans for its conversion into two luxury residences or a just one grand family home, says Michael Dunn at Richardson & Wrench Double Bay who is seeking $7 million plus buyer interest.
Built around 1850 to a design by Edmund Blacket for the children of renowned industrialist and benefactor Thomas Mort.
It is not the Greenoaks Cottage that was for many decades owned by the well-known legal family, the Streets.
In 1927 Kenneth Street paid the not inconsiderable sum of £8,500 for his house which was the home for the rest of their lives. The house was described as double storeyed with a tennis court in the garden and overlooking Double Bay. "It was a stone's throw from St Mark's Anglican Church and parishioners remember Jessie Street, invariably running late for Sunday morning service," the 1978 biography by Peter Sekuless noted.
For a while it was owned by the woolbroker Waldthausen family.
In 2010 the Haege family's long-time holding was listed through McGrath Estate Agents with $10 million hopes.
Meanwhile the October 31 closing date for expressions of interest for the 1840s Bishopscourt, Darling Point looms.
Its Ray White Double Bay listing agent Craig Pontey tells me there's been "strong interest."
"To-date we have received interest from the United Kingdom, the USA including from New York, and from China as well as from a number of potential buyers from South East Asia.
"There has also been strong interest from Australian based buyers both local and interstate."
No confirmation as to the likely price, but hopes are understood to be around $25 million.
Set on 6,216 square metre, it was last sold in 1910 through Richardson & Wrench by the grazier Michael Campbell Langtree, "at a satisfactory figure" Another report, two days later, corrected the error as to the vendor, and put the price paid by the Church of England as 6,750 pounds.
The two offerings - on different sides of Greenoaks Avenue - give an insight into the vast holding and wealth of Thomas Mort. Indeed Darling Point was home to a who's who of merchants, the pioneer families behind Tooths and Reschs breweries and the retailing Horderns too.
Thomas Sutcliffe Mort, businessman and horticulturist, was born at Bolton, Lancashire, England and worked as a clerk, taking the chance to migrate to Sydney in 1838 to bolster the family fortunes.
In 1843 he set up as an auctioneer, becoming an innovator in wool sales, but he restlessly pursued other projects. Mort, who had pioneered refrigeration, established Bodalla in the 1860s as the South Coast specialist area for cheese making. By 1889, Mort's Dock at Balmain was Sydney's largest private employer, with more than 1300 workers.
His Darling Point property set the tone among the fashionable villas of this Sydney suburb, purchasing the then known, Percyville cottage, standing on seven acres, which he transformed into the house known as Greenoaks designed by Edmund Blacket in the academic gothic style.
Mort employed the newly arrived nurseryman Michael Guilfoyle to undertake the gardens.
Regarded as a high churchman, Mort was one of the most prominent Anglican laymen in Sydney gifting the nearby land for St Mark's Church, Darling Point.
Mort died in 1878 from pleuro-pneumonia at Bodalla where he was buried, survived by five sons and two daughters of his first wife, and by his second wife Marianne Elizabeth Macauley, whom he had married at St Mark's in 1874, and by their two sons.
His goods were valued for probate at £200,000 but the income and capital realizations distributed to his beneficiaries totalled around £600,000.
The home is being offered for sale for the first time in 100 years as the Anglican Archbishop of Sydney has occupied Bishopscourt since 1911.
Craig Pontey says the scope to create an outstanding family home and estate is without a peer and when fully restored, Bishopscourt would undoubtedly sit with only a handful of similar properties any where in Australia.
"And while there is room to create a fantastic home, some of the work has already been done with the roof and exterior recently up-graded at a cost of over $2 million.
"So a few steps have already been taken for someone who will make this their family home for many generations to come."
And the Mort portrait (pictured right) which I spotted hanging in Bishopscourt's grand foyer will apparently be staying with the house, included in the sale price.
