Sydney FC boss scores $60 million for Point Piper home

It’s been a good 12 months for Sydney’s trophy home owners,and don’t Sydney FC ownerScott Barlow and his socialite wifeAlina know it. Almost 12 months to the day that they took the keys to their $45 million trophy home,Akuna,they have sold it for about $60 million.

That’s an impressive capital gain thanks toHoang Trang Do,who this week lodged a caveat on title outing himself as the buyer.

Akuna is the Point Piper waterfront residence with a landmark Chinese-style pagoda boathouse that the Barlows bought from big band performerWarren Daly and his writer wifeKaren.

The Dalys had tried to sell it for five years before the Barlows came along,and had owned it since 1997 when grocery tycoonJohn David sold it for $7.75 million.

Why the Barlows sold remains a mystery – given there was only a no comment from “Mr Sydney FC” – but there were clearly a few things that weren’t quite right given plans were lodged with council in January for more than $1 million worth of “alterations and additions”.

Thrown in for the rumoured $60 million price (to be confirmed at settlement) is an apartment in the Danmark block behind that the Barlows purchased six months ago for $1.3 million,giving them some oversight into the building’s strata management.

At the time the chairman of Sydney FC and Alina,a member of the Gold Dinner Committee,purchased Akuna,they had already sold their nearby former home for $40 million to Macquarie Bank’s top earnerNick O’Kane.

Do,who owns QTKT property investment company,is coming from Vaucluse where he purchased the home of jewellery makerRoderick Morton in 2018 for $16 million.

Incidentally,Do is not the only new apartment owner in the grand Danmark building. Records showLisa Keighery,widow of Marcs founderMark Keighery,has purchased a one-bedder for $1.1 million in the converted 1907-built mansion.

Paddington Green greenie

Point Piper’s original climate change activist,Geoff Cousins,looks like he’ll be moving on from the neighbourhood thanks to last week’s $20 million purchase in Paddington’s Paddington Green development by his author wifeDarleen Bungey.

Bungey,whose has written biographies on the late great Australian artists John Olsen andArthurBoyd (and is the sister of Pulitzer Prize-winning authorGeraldine Brooks),purchased the penthouse from retired real estate agentPeter Ledgerwood.

Thesale last week by The Agency’s Ben Collier has set a new high for Paddington.

Cousins has ranked among Point Piper’s more high-profile,and interesting,corporate leaders since he and Bungey purchased their Wolseley Road home for $10 million in 2007 from rag traderLeonard Karpin.

Cousins made his name in the 1980s running George Patterson when it was Australia’s largest ad agency,and was later an adviser to the Howard government and former Telstra director before he became one of the environment movement’s more outspoken and cashed up supporters.

No sign of Cousins’ Point Piper home up for sale yet,but sources say marketing material is already in the works,and it is expected to hit the market in coming weeks.

Freight expectations

The Barlows’ bullish sale result will also be good news for freight bossArthur Tzaneros,who this week launched his Vaucluse home with a $50 million to $55 million guide after only a year in residence.

Tzaneros,the chief and co-founder of ACFS Port Logistics,took almost a year to settle on the grand residence set behind a gated entry,tennis court and swimming pool,having exchanged on it in 2021 for $32 million from Woollahra-boundAndrew Griffin,of commercial finance company Balmain.

Raine&Horne’s Alex Lyons has the listing.

Tzaneros is returning to his former Bellevue Hill neighbourhood where earlier this month he bought the$61.5 million digs of flower wholesalerLeo Lynch.

Meanwhile,Forbes’ Ken Jacobs wouldn’t disclose how much New York-based admanDavid Droga paid for Tamarama’s Lang Syne house,but title records have.

Settlement shows Droga’s corporate interests have paid $45 million for the home of the late radio funnymanHarry Griffiths - no mortgage required.