Afterpay co-founder David Hancock creates $14m family compound in Paddington

When it comes to Sydney’s uber-rich, one family home is rarely enough, so if the opportunity presents itself to buy the house next door they often will do so. Take Afterpay co-founder and shareholder David Hancock and his wife Fiona.

The couple bought their Paddington home in 2018 for $7.65 million through The Agency’s Ben Collier, and three years later have added the Victorian villa next door for $6.5 million through the same agent to create a sort of family compound of 700 square metres for a total of $14.15 million.

Hancock’s new house was home to the late artist Donald Friend in 1984 after he was introduced to it by his then neighbour, renowned late artist Margaret Olley, and both houses were redesigned a few years later by Espie Dods after they were purchased by the late stockbroker Robert Ashton.

Hancock, who reportedly netted about $136 million after he exercised his share options last year, is no stranger to neighbourly purchases. Having owned a South Coast weekender in Gerroa since 2001, last year he added the house next door for $4.75 million.

The couple are currently undertaking a major renovation of a Centennial Park residence they bought as a knock-down-rebuild in late 2019 for $8 million.

Top of the Town sells at a loss

Property developer Duncan Hardie has sold his penthouse atop Darlinghurst’s Top of the Town building for a loss, settling on a $10.5 million sale to Kerry Paramor, the wife of property veteran Greg Paramor.

Hardie and his wife Lyn paid $10.9 million for the apartment five years ago from former media executive Cameron O’Reilly, who had bought it from the Sutton car dealership family for $8.25 million in 2007.

The Paramors are best known among property watchers for owning the 1869 heritage estate Idlemere on the Lavender Bay waterfront, purchased 20 years ago for $7.25 million, and which is often billed as a potential house price record setter for the north shore if it ever hit the market.

Follow-the-leader at Atlassian

Billionaire tech titans Scott Farquhar and Mike Cannon-Brookes are best known among property watchers for owning Australia’s two most expensive houses – the Elaine and Fairwater estates in Point Piper – so it is perhaps unsurprising to see their penchant for good real estate has spread within the company, as evidenced by the recent purchase by Atlassian chief-of-staff Amy Glancey.

Records show Glancey’s new home is a $9.3 million townhouse in Tamarama that was snapped up just days before it was set to hit the market through PPD’s Alexander Phillips. It was once owned by supermodel-turned-fashion-designer Gail Elliott and Joe Coffey before they sold it in 2008 for $4.82 million.

It is one of three in a row designed and built by architect Jake Dowse, and makes Glancey a near neighbour to the $6.25 million townhouse bought last year by Atlassian’s former principal developer Scott Harwood (the engineer behind Code Barrel).

Still with the rush of high-end sales on the eastern beaches, Boris Dangubic of KKR’s private equity team and his portfolio manager wife Jess Farr-Jones, daughter of former Wallaby captain Nick Farr-Jones, have bought $9.6 million digs in Bronte.

The Michael Folk-designed house was sold by fellow private equity executive Natasha Nankivell, now at funds management giant QIC, and former Mortgage Choice chief John Flavell, both of whom have decamped for a $6.1 million pad in Darling Point.

Real Sales of Vaucluse

A Vaucluse residence was slipped onto the market this week with no address and no price guide, no doubt amid hopes of avoiding unwanted publicity, but who could overlook the glamorous interiors and Paul Bangay garden that are home to The Real Housewives of Sydney’s Nicole O’Neil and her husband Adam.

The five-bedroom digs with a pool was known as the Art House when O’Neil purchased it in 2017 for $7 million, thanks to its owners of the previous 22 years, art consultant Bambi Blumberg and her former Westpac banker husband Derek.

Designed by architect David Phillips, the O’Neils renovated it in 2018, complete with marble kitchen and Hermes wallpaper, to create the sort of home you’d expect of the founder of events planning company Pret-a-Party.

O’Neil, a former Miss Australia, has listed it with Raine & Horne’s Alex Lyons and BlackDiamondz’s Monika Tu. Despite not having a price guide, sources say it carries $16 million hopes amid plans to trade-up locally.

Double Bay’s big deal

The Double Bay home of Diane Symonds, of the ISL Property shopping centre family, sold quietly late on Thursday night for $8 million, almost doubling the price it last traded for just three years ago.

D’Leanne Lewis, of Laing+Simmons Double Bay, took time out from filming season 2 of the real estate “reality” television show Luxe Listings to transact the sale, saying the $8 million result set a record per square metre for the suburb’s housing market.

Symonds, who is president of the charity Women’s International Zionist Organisation, purchased the 350 square metre house on Epping Road in early 2018 for $4.5 million.

It comes six months after Symonds’s aunt Sara Cooper sold her Bellevue Hill house for $6.56 million through Ms Lewis to up-grade to the $13 million Point Piper apartment of Susan Rankine, the widow of businessman John Rankine and first wife of the late Sir Laurence Street.

South Coogee’s right, said Fred

Young Rich Lister, serial entrepreneur and co-founder of the Finder comparison empire Fred Schebesta can add “king of the castle” to his list of monikers this week after he settled on the South Coogee home of former Macquarie executive Laurie Macri and his wife Christine for $17 million.

“I chose this property because it’s unique, it’s signature and it says so much without saying anything at all,” said the 40-year-old.

“Tamarama was nice but it’s time to take it up another level. We can use this asset to create great content and tell stories that other people can learn from and generate wealth for themselves.”

To that end, Schebesta is already in discussions with film, video game and cryptocurrency companies to offer the house as a suitably glamorous set, just as it was more than 20 years ago when it was the backdrop to a Herb Ritts shoot of Nicole Kidman and Tom Cruise for their film Eyes Wide Shut.

The $17 million sale smashed the suburb record when it sold just weeks after hitting the market for $15.5 million to $17 million through Ballard’s Clint Ballard and James Ball.

The landmark palazzo-style residence perched on the South Coogee clifftop – known to locals as Coogee Castle – was bought by Macri, the former Australian Turf Club chairman, in 2005 for $7.5 million from businessman John Singleton, who made on loss on his $8.2 million purchase of two years earlier.

Meanwhile, Schebesta’s Tamarama penthouse he bought in 2017 for $3.9 million, is expected to be retained as an investment.

Hotelier lists in Cremorne

Hotelier Tim Fallon, a co-owner of Mosman’s Buena Vista Hotel with his brothers Luke and Matthew, has set an August 14 auction on his Federation home in Cremorne.

Anthony O’Gorman, of O’Gorman and Partners, has set a $5.5 million guide for the four-bedroom home with a swimming pool, renovated since it last traded three years ago for $4.2 million.

It comes just weeks after his brother Matthew sold his Newport beachfront weekender for $10 million to owner of Wine Country Tours Richard Everett and his wife Julie.