Soccer star Mark Schwarzer leases out Boongarre at Watsons Bay, with whispers it has been sold
Soccer star Mark Schwarzer and his wife, Paloma, have leased Boongarre, their Watsons Bay property, but there's also unconfirmed whispers it has been sold.
It became available for rent at $3500 a week last year when the couple, who are staying in Britain, tried unsuccessfully to find a buyer for the 1870s Watsons Bay harbourfront house. It has been leased at around $3000 a week for a year apparently through Laing & Simmons.
The five-bedroom Victorian weatherboard is best known for its association with the Stead family.
It was bought for £400 in 1917 by naturalist David Stead, when his daughter, the novelist Christina, was 14 years old. Christina, who left for London in 1928, used the locality in her books For Love Alone, The Man Who Loved Children and Seven Poor Men Of Sydney. It was built for John Harmer, a clerk in the water police office at Watsons Bay, by his father, William, a builder and ferry boat owner.
During the Stead ownership the property was known as Boongarre, derived from the name of an Aborigine, Bungaree, whom Governor Lachlan Macquarie described as the chief of the Broken Bay tribe.
Set on a 1,132-square-metre block, the five-bedroom house Schwarzer did the hard yards securing development approval for Tobias Partners alterations and extensions where he met some resistance when the likes of the US author Jonathan Franzen asked that the house be preserved insitu as a national heritage item.
No development works has been yet undertaken by Schwarzer, who bought it from the Pavlik family for $10.2 million in 2009.
The Pavlik family bought it from the National Trust in 1991 as it had been bequeathed by Stead's third wife, botanist Thistle Harris, best known as the author of Wild Flowers Of Australia.
The listing agent Brad Pillinger of Pillinger Property had been quoting $12 million-plus, but did not provide Property Observer with any update on any sale, which is presumably a delayed settlement sale given the 12-month lease arrangement.
