John Porter lists Vaucluse mansion inspired by 279 Post-It notes
The hillside Vaucluse residence of John Porter, the Austar chief before its merger with Foxtel last year, and his wife, Susan Mougey, has been listed for sale with $11 million plus hopes.
The Vogue Living-featured house was designed by the Harvard-trained US architect Tom Rivard three year ago. Rivard describes it as an extensive renovation and reconstruction of an expanded family home for a family of six plus their cat.
"As befits the site and occupants, the project is a village, and a hilltop one at that," he suggested, noting the site, along with the previous house, was “phenomenologically excavated.”
The interior design was undertaken by Briony Fitzgerald, sister of Channel 9 boss David Gyngell, and whose late father Bruce Gyngell pioneered Australian television, while her mother, Ann Gyngell, was a leading Sydney interior decorator.
The five-bedroom, four-level residence is set in gardens with a pool and Hollywood-style cabana designed by William Dangar.
Another Hillside Avenue residence sold to the Yang family from Hong Kong for $21.5 million in 2011, the year's highest house price.
The couple paid $1.89 million in 1999 for the 658-square-metre Vaucluse block.
It's been listed through Alan Waitsman at LJ Hooker Double Bay.
Rivard's design team included Team Georg Ackerman, Poune Parsanejad and Alina McConnochie.
"Along with expressing a vast range of living patterns that change from day to day (and hour to hour), the family is both highly cohesive as well as being composed of six unique individuals.
"The cat adopts traits of each, save for the father’s ability to whip up dinner for six at short notice," Rivard wrote.
''The 279 Post-It notes (in six colours) tagged in the 20th Century Art Book left no doubt as to either the individuality or the expressiveness of the clients – save for the cat, who neither speaks nor cares much for art," he added.
John Porter is now chairman of advertising and marketing company Photon Group which changed its name to Enero Group last year. Prior to joining Austar, John Porter spent ten years in various senior management capacities for Time Warner Cable, a subsidiary of Time Warner, Inc. He has more than 30 years of management experience in the US and Australian subscription television industries.