Adman Ray Balcomb sets Manly record with $16m sale on 'Millionaires' Row'

Manly’s suburb high has been smashed by another sale of one of Fairy Bower’s oceanfront trophy homes at more than $16 million.

The home of outdoor sports advertising boss Ray Balcomb and his wife Julie was listed in June with a guide of $15 million to $16.5 million, and local sources say it sold at or above the top of that guide.

Michael Clarke, who sold it with his Clarke & Humel co-director Cherie Humel, confirmed only that the property had sold, but declined to reveal the sale price.

Despite being shrouded in secrecy, word of the sale first leaked when a sold sticker went up on the property on Friday morning, and it was flagged as sold on the Domain.com.au website by midday.

The result more than doubles the $7.25 million sale result the property last sold for in 2013. It was redesigned by architect Vince Squillace in recent years.

It tops the suburb’s previous high set a year ago at $16 million when the former chief executive of collapsed education and training provider Vocation Mark Hutchinson and his wife Sophie sold their oceanfront reserve home up the road sold to specialist laparoscopic surgeon Craig Taylor, after a redesign by Squillace Architects.

The Hutchinsons had bought the house on oceanfront reserve in Sophie’s name for $7.25 million four years ago from motorcycle legend Wayne Gardner and his wife, Toni.

Dr Taylor has since sold his Tudor-style home – also on oceanfront reserve on prized Bower Street – for more than $13 million.

The Balcombs listed their home overlooking Shelly Beach in May after they bought a $10 million about 100 metres away on the high side of Bower Street for $10 million from Aircraft Supplies Industries managing director Mark Langbein.

It went to auction in July but was passed in on a vendor bid of $15 million.

The Balcombs have been major players in the north shore trophy market in recent years, having also sold their Duffys Forest acreage property a year ago for a suburb high of $10.25 million.

Fairy Bower’s Bower Street has earned the moniker “Millionaires’ Row” in recent years thanks to the big ticket sales on both sides of the street.

Tim Worner, who resigned as Seven chief executive on Friday, paid $9.5 million for his waterfront reserve house in Bower Street in 2016 from Oroton chief executive Ross Lane.

Lane then scored one of Manly’s few double-digit sales outside of Bower Street in May when Rowe Partners’ Jake Rowe sold his beachfront house on Little Manly Beach for about $15.25 million to a mystery US-based expat.