And his recent purchase of a $12 million getaway among the bankers and professional types of Palm Beach won’t add any battler credentials,even if his official residence is now a.
Well-placed local sources say the Rhodes scholar and his barrister wifePhoebe Arcus have purchased the long-held holiday home of the late publicanJohn Toohey,not as a retreat from the rogues of Canberra,but as an investment that is expected to hit the rental pool after it settles later this year.
La Palma is a handsome investment. The four-bedroom house has views north to the Barrenjoey Lighthouse and was built 30 years ago by renowned developerBill Shipton and designed by local architect fan favouriteSusan Rothwell with interiors by the late acclaimed designerFrank Grill. To add to its name-dropping pedigree,the property was later owned by investment banker and mining executiveRonnie Beevor.
Toohey and his widowAnne purchased it in 2002 for $4.68 million when they sold their Pittwater trophy home Finisterre for $20 million to the late businessman,winemaker and yachtieBob Oatley.
After Toohey died,it was listed last year by Belle Property’s Peter Starr for $15 million,and sold recently for about $12 million,making it this year’s highest house sale in Palm Beach,so far.
Funding for the purchase is unlikely to have come from Charlton’s wage as a backbencher.
Years before Charlton joined the ranks of the Albanese government,the kid from Kenthurst scored his dream job as an economics “whiz-kid” adviser to former prime ministerKevin Rudd to help steer the country out of the global financial crisis.
As the story goes,when Rudd lost his job in 2010,so too did Charlton,and with few jobs among the rank-and-file for former Rudd staffers Charlton instead set up his own strategy and analytics business called AlphaBeta.
The timing couldn’t have been better as the demand for big data saw the firm balloon in size and scale,luring professional services giant Accenture to acquire it in 2020.
It remains unknown how much Accenture paid for AlphaBeta in 2020,but later that same year he and Arcus bought their Bellevue Hill home,Fintry,for $16.1 million.
Two years later Charlton was invited to run for the seat of Parramatta,where as a child his dad had worked at the Rheem factory. He won the seat against Liberal candidateMaria Kovacic,making him far and away Labor’s best best-housed parliamentarian.
Villa Camilla primed for sale
Kaftan queenCamilla Franks has wasted no time listing her Woollahra home following her purchase for $12.5 million.
Franks’ purchase of the Federation mansion,Gnal Loa,through PPD’s Alexander Phillips should make it no surprise to see Franks’ Woollahra home set to hit the market with the same agent.
There is no guide ahead of next week’s launch,but buyers should expect to pay about $8 million – give or take a bit either way.
Franks purchased the 1880s house,known as Villa Camilla,in 2016 for $3.8 million,adding a sanctuary-style garden since then with a fire pit and pizza oven to go with the pool.
Franks’s new home was sold by Barrenjoey Capital partner and Australian Rugby Foundation chairmanBen Scott and his wifePensiri,who bought it in 2021 for $10.1 million.
From Russia to Mosman
London-based financierAndrew Ipkendanz has quietly doubled his money on his Mosman home,pocketing $20 million in an off-market sale.
Ipkendanz is best known among local property watchers for his Vaucluse trophy home he listed in 2013 with bullish $60 million hopes and sold in 2016 for $47.8 million to Sanity ownerRay Itaoui.
Ipkendanz first made a name for himself in international banking circles in the 1990s when Credit Suisse First Boston was the only foreign bank in Russia and Ipkendanz ran its global foreign exchange operations.
He did well in the role,judging by the residence known as Carpe Diem he bought on the French Riviera’s Saint-Jean-Cap-Ferrat in the late 1990s,and sold a decade after for about €50 million.
Ipkendanz bought his Corben Architects-designed house in Mosman in 2015 for $9.35 million,and records show it was sold by Richardson&Wrench’s Kirsty Freyer.
Cousins sells up
Point Piper’s original climate change activist,Geoff Cousinsand his author wife Darleen Bungey sold their designer home in Point Piper on Thursday given their downsize to a Paddington penthouse they bought for a suburb high of $20 million last year.
Sotheby’s Clint Ballard and Michael Pallier declined to reveal the result,but had listed it in July with a $27.5 million to $30 million guide. It was a bullish asking price given the couple purchased it for $10 million in 2007.
An independent source put the sale price at $23 million.