Interior designer Leslie Walford penthouse contents gross about $540,000
The decluttering of the Princeton, Double Bay penthouse of the late interior design doyen Leslie Walford has perhaps given price clarity.
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It was listed for sale last month with $4.5 million-plus hopes through Christies International agent Ken Jacobs, but now the apartment comes with a $4.95 million asking price.
The contents of the Walford apartment were sold at weekend auction through Mossgreen. The sales tally suggest around $540,000 was grossed, including the buyer's premium, from about 400 household items.
The items represented five decades of accumulation by the noteworthy decorator to old Sydney money – and some later arrivistes.
They were listed by Walford's partner, Colin Davies.
The penthouse with 279-square-metre garden terracing sits atop the 1939 Art Deco building with northerly views across the harbour to Manly.
The interiors showcased the tastes of Walford, who retired just five years ago after an international career spanning five decades.
It was built with polished timber floorboards, high vaulted ceilings, ornate cornices, curved bay windows and french doors.
The initial Double Bay purchase cost $125,000 in 1975 from Sabrina Van der Linden.
The apartment, which comes with 500 square metres of space, was consolidated with another purchase in 1978 from the photographer Ann Riddell.
More Princeton penthouse photos on page 2
Born to parents who celebrated with two bottles of 1918 Bollinger, after his 1927 birth, Walford was sent off at the age of 11 to England. (The champers bottles, below, remain unsold with a $100-150 estimate.)
After time in the British Army, he studied interior design in Paris. He had self-deprecating pretensions, often joking he was conceived at the Ritz. Then hastening to add it was the Ritz Leura, Blue Mountains guesthouse rather than the Paris hotel one he loved so much.
His penthouse apartment ceiling was painted with a bamboo and foliage pattern and suspended from this was a large Fortuny silk lantern from Venice.
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"This traditional Chinoiserie effect is rather lovely in European decorating," Walford once told then SMH Sydney Magazine home decor columnist Margie Blok.
She was among the auction crowd that watched the Fortuny fabric tiered ceiling light (below) fetch $3,172.
Among the dearest items was a pair of Louis XV carved walnut fauteuil, signed Blanchard, French 18th-century armchairs that fetched $26,840.
A pair of Italian Blackamoor figures of two Nubian men, 19th-century, sold for $23,180.
A 19th-century French white porcelain and gilt bronze mounted elephant and pagoda form clock century fetched $7,320.
One of the cheapies appeared to be the Ross Watson painting, James II and youth, 1986 oil on canvas which fetched $3,416. His works are in significant private collections including Sir Elton John, James Wolfensohn and the British peer Lord Cholmondeley. Watson was a 1990 Moet & Chandon finalist.
The Historic Houses Trust (HHT) has become the home of some papers from the archive of the late Leslie Walford.
