High-end buyers break records in red-hot inner west

Shelley Simpson,the founder of porcelain homewares brand Mud,put her stamp on Stanmore’s house price records this week when she purchased a four-bedroom terrace for a $4.65 million high.

BresicWhitney’s Chris Nunn had a guide of $3.8 million on the Victorian-era house when he launched the campaign last weekend,only to see it sold four days later.

Simpson was always going to have to dig deep to buy back into the inner west after she sold her former Newtown home in 2019 for $3.65 million,given the suburb records sweeping the district.

For example,Marrickville’s “Oiled House” set a top price at $4.9 million when it was sold by BresicWhitney’s Adrian Oddi on behalf of academic and industrial designerGonzalo Portas and Sonia Royo-Portas.

And just months after Summer Hill cracked the $5 million level the record was reset at $5.4 million for a five-bedroom bungalow with a pool and spa,gym when it was bought by lawyersAmy Barcelo Gray,of the NSW Cabinet Office,and Jason Gray.

In Russell Lea,a red-brick clunker across the road from the Bay Run sold for $9.2 million,and over the hill in Five Dock settlement records lodged in January reveal a 1970s-era house on the waterfront quietly sold for $10.35 million – the suburb’s first sale in the double-digit millions.

Former NSW Harness Racing Authority chief stewardRoger Nebauer andJulie Nebauer had purchased it for $70,000 in 1975. It was bought by the head of private Chinese-Australian property development company Megland Group,Xia Meng and her partner Weixi Xie.

And while we’re at it,there’s a new Rozelle high of $7.8 million,set by an apartment,no less. The penthouse in the waterfront Balmain Cove development was purchased by Hunters Hill trophy home ownersToni andLyall McLachlan,the latter of whom is the chairman of Graphite Energy.

Suffolk Garden

MusicianDaniel Jones,of 1990s pop duo sensation Savage Garden,has listed his Suffolk Park house for sale for $2.9 million with Kim Jones,of her eponymous agency.

The listing follows his purchase last year with his wife,former Hi-5 performerKathleen de Leon Jones of a $5 million property in the Tuckombil hinterland known as The Coppice.

Jones’s Suffolk Beach house,a block back from Tallow Beach,has been renovated throughout since he bought it in 2020 for $1.6 million.

Bondi’s biggest landlord

Billionaire fund managerWill Vicars has ploughed more of his mountains of cash into the Bondi Beach property market,this time picking up a block of 21 apartments for $23.5 million.

The block of predominantly one-bedders was sold by fellow prominent eastern suburb’s identityMichael Teplitsky,who last year sold a block of four apartments on the Darling Point waterfront for$55 million to interests of developer John Roth.

Vicars,who runs hedge fund Caledonia Investments,is ordinarily based in Point Piper,but has a deep-pocketed affection for Bondi Beach judging by the $100 million worth of residential property he owns nearby. Count them:there are $40 million worth of apartments in the Bondi Pacific,an $11.3 million block of apartments in North Bondi,a Bondi block bought for $11.6 million and a Tamarama investment for $10.85 million. Rental anyone?

Grand-er designs

Teal MPAllegra Spender has lodged plans for $750,000 worth of “alterations and additions” to the family’s long-held Woollahra home,now hers as part of the estate settlement with her siblingsBianca Spender andAlex Schuman following the death of their mother,fashion doyenneCarla Zampatti in 2021.

The Mediterranean-style residence was built in 1934 by architectF. Glynn Gilling,purchased by Zampatti in 1975 for $220,000,and to this day retains plenty of its ornate features like its grand circular staircase,arched doorways,a pitched roof with Marseilles pattern tiles,double-hung windows and wrought iron details.

This week’s lodged plans by architectDino Raccanello target the home’s “service areas”,such as an enlarged kitchen area,a demolished sunroom to make way for a two-storey addition and a semi-circular balcony off the fourth bedroom.

In Vaucluse,work looks to be under way on a dramatic $4 million “modification” of theheritage-listed mansion Werribee in Vaucluse that was sold late last year by China’s food tycoonSun Shaofeng for $31.2 million to millennialWenbin Xu.

Xu has already been busy clearing all the trees on site ahead of the anticipated work to the 1914-built residence.

Down the hill there seems to be no hurry to build the 16-room mansion of Great Wall International directorKing Fai Chu andXiaoyi Zhu,despite the somewhat rushed demolition two years ago of what was previously a 1920s Gilling-designed residence.

The house had beentemporarily protected by an interim heritage order but within days of that being lifted two years ago the bulldozers moved in,and it has remained a flattened site since.