Sarah Lew buys 3 Towers Road, Toorak

Sarah Lew buys 3 Towers Road, Toorak
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Jonathan ChancellorDecember 7, 2020

A Toorak mansion with revised, but still overly ambitious, $25 million hopes has been bought by Sarah Lew for an undisclosed price.

Even its June sale has been kept under wraps, with no indication of its sale on listing websites. Socrates Vasiliades, the international commodities trader, took three years to find a buyer for 3 Towers Road, Toorak.

With 22 rooms, (below) a lift, home theatre, gym, pool, and basement parking, it came with record-setting $30 million hopes back in 2011.

Kay & Burton agent Ross Savas Savas had the listing of the 2,140-square-metre property. 

No sale price indication has yet been given. Sarah Lew has been briefly residing in a $4.2 million Toorak penthouse since mid-2012.

Vasiliades, who had had tradespeople flown in from around the world to work on the house during its six-year construction, now gives his address as London. The property was bought by his wife, Celeste, in 2002 for $4.6 million from Peter Thomas.

With projects in the Congo, Gabon and Cameroon, Vasiliades has been the chief executive of Core Mining since its 2003 establishment. The iron ore explorer has been backed by Glencore International Plc and has Russian steelmaker OAO Severstal as an investor. He has over 23 years’ experience in the steel industry and prior to forming Core Mining he traded steel and bulk raw materials worldwide.

The Victorian price record remains with the 2010 Portsea sale of Ilyuka for $26 million.

One Towers Road, Toorak, was sold (above) in 2013 for $21.5 million to the Cotton On boss Nigel Austin by former JPMorgan Australia chairman Brian Watson.

Set on 3,900 square metres, the six-bedroom house was once owned by businessman John Elliott.

The empty-nester Watson family bought the Toorak property in 2001 for $11.1 million, a then record-setting price. The Watsons had themselves sought to set a record sale price, but fell short at $21.5 million.

Toorak’s highest-priced sale was the reported $24 million sale in 2010 of the former Baillieu family estate on St Georges Road, Toorak when bought by soft-drink magnate Harry Stamoulis.

 

Jonathan Chancellor

Jonathan Chancellor is one of Australia's most respected property journalists, having been at the top of the game since the early 1980s. Jonathan co-founded the property industry website Property Observer and has written for national and international publications.

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