No mortgage for ANZ chief Philip Chronican's pricey Sydney bolthole: Title Tattle
The chief executive of ANZ's Australian operations, Philip Chronican, now has a Sydney bolthole, having bought in the newly completed complex The Residence overlooking Hyde Park (pictured above). The Melbourne-based banking executive and his wife, Leanne, spent $2.35 million for the College Street apartment. The couple left for Melbourne in 2009 after the 27-year Westpac veteran accepted the senior posting with the ANZ. They then sold their Raglan Street Mosman abode for $3.1 million in 2010 and bought for about $4.5 million in a boutique Armadale apartment block, Lutetia. It was Chronican who argued the case when the ANZ moved to sever the long-standing link between Reserve Bank decisions and movements in mortgage rates, saying ANZ interest rates would now be reviewed each month, independently of the central bank. But his latest acquisition has no registered mortgage, saving him the bother of seeking out the best of the bank rates.
Emma Christen, the partner of Mark Fennessy, the television production entrepreneur, has spent $6.6 million to buy in Tamarama (pictured above). It’s the former home of Dan White, which was passed in on a vendor bid of $6.5 million at its Ray White onsite auction in September. Fennessy’s long career in TV production includes time at Crackerjack, FremantleMedia Australia and since 2010 at Shine Australia, where he’s overseen shows including MasterChef, Junior MasterChef and The Biggest Loser. Dan White, a great-grandson of the founder of the Ray White real estate empire, and his wife, Sam, wanted close to $7 million when through Ray White Double Bay agent Elliott Placks for the house, which was completed four years ago in gardens designed by landscaper William Dangar. The house has expansive north-easterly ocean views. The couple sold to upgrade to a $13.1 million Bellevue Hill estate – some 2,460 square metres with a tennis court. Dan White was spotted attending a short course at Harvard over the break.
The art and antique dealers John and Lynette Cunnington are seeking again to sell their Woollahra residence (pictured above), with plans to spend more time in Paris. The John Street house is expected to fetch around $2.2?million at its forthcoming auction. The three-storey, three-bedroom house comes with sandstone fireplace and private courtyard. Fiona Marano at Ballard Property has the listing. It had been listed for August auction with $2.45 million hopes. The Cunningtons plan to live in the apartment they bought five years ago in the ninth arrondissement of Paris.
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Jennifer Hawkins has yet to sell her Coogee home (pictured above). The former Miss Universe turned television personality and swimwear designer put in a $2.5 million vendor bid when auction last December through McGrath agent Adrian Bo. It now sits listed with price hopes around $2.5 million.
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There's always been bit of the working-class man in Jimmy Barnes. Not just in the gravelly voice, but also in the singer's taste for property. But Barnes, who formed his band Cold Chisel on the industrial outskirts of Adelaide, has decided to offload his twin Botany industrial warehouse investment spaces (pictured above). The two warehouses in the Sydney industrial precinct have residential conversion potential given their residential 2b zoning. They cost $2.3 million in 2009 when bought by Barnes and his wife, Jane. Steve Pappas at Firmstone Properties Rosebery has the listing with a $3 million hopes. The couple had engaged architects to start negotiations with the council for a multi-unit redevelopment. The 1,470-square-metre Daniel Street holding was envisaged as potentially suitable for private premises for their extended entourage given their own residence has been in the neighbourhood since 2004 when they spent $1.6 million on a 490-square-metre holding that conveniently had a recording studio.
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The Cronin Island, Surfers Paradise mansion (pictured above) of Nicole Bricknell, the ex-wife of bankrupted Billabong founder Matthew Perrin, has been listed for January 28 auction. The seven-bedroom property with 10-car garaging will be auctioned following a 27-month absence of south-east Queensland houses fetching more than $10 million. Photographs show some 30 crates, mostly unopened, of Penfolds Grange in the wine cellar. The Southern Cross Drive house with a lift between its basement and rooftop has previously been valued at $15 million. Nicole Bricknell, who has reverted to her maiden name, the daughter of one of the country's top bookmakers, Laurie Bricknell, won her battle last September against the Commonwealth Bank, which was seeking to repossess her family home, which sits on a 2,218-square-metre block that cost $1.45 million in 1999. The Queensland Supreme Court found the former Billabong chief repeatedly forged the signature of his wife to secure a $13.5 million loan from the Commonwealth Bank. The ruling meant the Commonwealth Bank could not enforce its mortgage over the couple's Gold Coast riverfront mansion or enforce personal guarantees against Perrin's wife. The lawyers for Bricknell returned to the courtroom last month to seek to determine the amount of costs to be paid. After a trial spanning two weeks, Walter Sofronoff, QC applied for additional costs on the ground that the matter should never have gone to trial.
Kylie Downes, SC for the bank, said the bank had every right to test the veracity of the fraud allegations in court. “Nicole trusted me with all financial matters and I have destroyed that faith and trust,'' Matthew Perrin confessed in a private gesture to his family. “No one could comprehend what I have done to her – taken her husband, faith, trust, house, family and financial security to hell without her having any idea,” he wrote in a confession, handed for safe keeping to his then father-in-law, which made its way into the court documentation. Michael Willems of Ray White Prestige Gold Coast Surfers Paradise has the listing.
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Still no sale – and therefore price comparison – from elsewhere on Cronin Island, given the abode of former Equititrust executive Mark McIvor remains for sale following its September auction. It’s a two-storey riverfront home (pictured above) designed by Sydney-based architect Alex Popovon a 1,736-square-metre block with 50-metre frontage onto the Nerang River. McIvor built the house on the $1 million block, which he bought in 1994. It sits in landscaping by international garden designer Andrew Pfieffer. The island’s highest sale was $8 million in 2004, when an older-style house on 2,300 square metres was sold.
McIvor, who founded the Gold Coast's own merchant bank, Equititrust, in 1993, also owns two other houses on the island. They cost $3.6 million in 2002 and $1.7 million in 2003. There are just 33 houses on the island. Michael Kollosche, the Ray White Broadbeach agent, has the listing. Equititrust, which became known for using a Roman voussoir arch as its marketing logo to suggest structural stability, was among the many unlisted mortgage funds to take a battering following the 2008 financial crisis.
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Urimbirra, the imposing granite homestead (pictured above) on 40 hectares in the Tilba Valley, has been sold. It fetched $2.3 million plus for its vendor, Carol Ladd, through Julie Rutherford at Julie Ruitherford Real Estate Bermagui. Urimbirra comes with 10-metre-high beam ceilings and features forged ironwork, antique timbers and handmade terracotta tiles. Its living areas open to the courtyard swimming pool. It was designed to be run as an exclusive six-bedroom B and B guest house, previously known as the Valley Country House when operated by then tourism industry operatives Lynton Manley and Catherine McDonough, who in the early 1990s employed French stonemasons to use the property's granite boulders to build the 900-square-metre home. The buyers from Orange, NSW plan to use it as a private home.
More than $820,000 is being sought by the Ginger and Smart fashion label co-founder Genevieve Smart’s Avalon house (pictured above and below). Smart and her partner, Aidan Sarsfield, a producer of animated films with Animal Logic studio, had initially hopes for $850,000 for the modest home, which was gutted after it cost $590,000 in 2003.
Set on 650 square metres in gardens with tall palms, the Lewis Street house with black floorboards and Asian-style sliding door to the deck has been photographed for Vogue and Marie Claire magazines. It’s listed with LJ Hooker Avalon agent Nina Sokolov, given the couple are looking for a bigger house in the northern beaches.
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Melbourne construction industry company director and horse racing enthusiast Peter Devitt has snapped up a heavily discounted Gold Coast penthouse (pictured above). It was bought late last year from Jennifer Reardon, the wife of cotton and macadamia farmer Rob Reardon, who accepted $9.2 million for the five-bedroom Liberty Panorama penthouse at Main Beach. It was initially listed in 2007 with $16.5 million hopes, then $15 million in 2008 and $14 million in 2009. Built over two levels with a private lift, it sits atop the Gold Coast's first elliptical-shaped high-rise, completed in 2001. Coming with 1,200 square metres of space, it was bought off the plan from Mirvac for $3.29 million in 2000. The shared facilities include lagoon-style pool, tennis court and indoor lap pool. The complex is only a short distance from the restaurant and boutique shopping precinct. It had been listed through Livin In Prestige Properties agent Sharon Lloyd. The last time Devitt, the LU Simon Builders managing director and former president of the Master Builders Association of Victoria, was in the news was in 2010 when he snapped up the penthouse at The Melburnian on St Kilda Road for about $15.5 million.
Former Richmond AFL footballer Nathan Brown is prepared to cop a small knock on his Elwood property (pictured above). Not surprising, really, since The Sunday Footy Show panellist only bought it at November 2010 auction. Costing $1.85 million, the three-bedroom, three-bathroom house now comes with a $1.79 million asking price through Hocking Stuart agent David Sullivan.
Title Tattle aims to tell you as soon as we know – often before it happens – so the word is that Mary Wong-Jenkins sold her triplex Darling Point penthouse this week, which had been listed last July. She’d been hoping for $2.65 million through 1st City Hasemer and Caldwell Eyles Double Bay in conjunction with Richardson & Wrench Elizabeth Bay. It was bought in 2008 for $2.35 million by the longtime managing director of the Kyko Group, best known for its multimillion-dollar refurbishment of the Art Deco City Mutual building in the Sydney CDB and the Wondakiah redevelopment of the AGL site at Wollstonecraft Bay.
And don't say that Title Tattle told you, but the dumped Wiggle Sam Moran is in the midst of upgrading Sydney abodes. Moran, the yellow Wiggle, his wife, Lyn, and their daughter, Eloise, are moving into the newly acquired $955,000 Rozelle cottage in inner Sydney (pictured above). It was bought last year at auction through Sarah Lorden Real Estate agent Lynsey Kemp and according to RP Data then briefly leased at $750 a week while the couple sought to sell their Pyrmont apartment.
Earlier this month the Morans sold the two-bedroom, two-bathroom Paragon, Pyrmont apartment for a healthy $682,500. It cost $500,000 in 2007. The apartment walls were full of show business memorabilia including Jersey Boys posters. Moran has overseen the recent renovation of the three-bedroom Rozelle cottage, which has been freshly painted and new carpet installed. It was marketed as offering “tremendous scope to refresh or renovate” and “currently in very liveable condition” with some retained period features. A formal lounge with slow combustion fireplace was the home’s focal point.
