Dancing With the Stars’ Kym Johnson and Shark Tank's Robert Herjavec buy $13m Rose Bay pad

Dancing With the Stars’  Kym Johnson, wife of Canadian cyber security software tycoon Robert Herjavec, looks to be joining the throngs of Hollywood expats returning home thanks to her recent $13.5 million purchase of a beachfront pad in Rose Bay.

The garden apartment in the Bord De L’Eau triplex isn’t quite the seven-bedroom mansion in LA’s gated Hidden Hills estate that Herjavec sold late last year for US$17.25 million, but then Sydney real estate is not cheap and the couple are not expected to make a permanent move down under given they retain a few other substantial homes in the US.

The purchase, through The Agency’s Ben Collier and Atlas’ Michael Coombs, set an apartment record for Rose Bay on behalf of former Ferrari chief Herbert Appleroth, who had undertaken an impressive renovation of the three-bedder since he bought it off the plan five years ago for $7.58 million.

It tops the brief claim to a suburb high by Michelle Berger, wife of FiveX commercial property group boss Joshua Berger, who early this year settled on her $11.25 million penthouse in the Wintergarden building.

Johnson was a professional dancer on Australia’s DWTS until 2006 when she moved to join the US version of the show, and in 2015 was paired with Herjavec – a celebrity investor on the US’s Shark Tank. The couple didn’t win season 20, coming in at sixth place, but they were married the following year and are now parents to three-year-old twins Haven and Hudson.

Tiffany & Co discovers North Bondi

Tiffany & Co local boss Glen Schlehuber and his wife Shirin were forced to dig deep to upgrade from their Bondi home recently, outbidding 14 other registered bidders for a North Bondi semi sold under the hammer for $6.1 million.

The two-level house with a pool designed by architect Brian Meyerson was listed with a guide of $4.5 million by Ray White Double Bay’s Warren Ginsberg and Elliott Placks, and sold for $900,000 more than the reserve before a crowd of about 200 people.

The purchase comes just a few months after the Schlehubers sold their Bondi terrace for $2.65 million.

It is one of six North Bondi house sales of more than $5 million this year. Joining Schlehuber in the bull run is billionaire Westfield heiress Monica Saunders-Weinberg, who outbid nine registered buyers to pay $6.55 million for a rundown freestanding bungalow.

D’Leanne Lewis, of Laing+Simmons Double Bay, had a $4.2 million guide and a $4.5 million reserve that no doubt helped lure the likes of Seven’s Bruce McWilliam to watch the competition force the result to $2 million more than the reserve.

The purchase by Bellevue Hill-based Saunders-Weinberg makes it three local investment properties, including another Hastings Parade house bought a year ago for $7.8 million and an apartment in the Cadigal building overlooking Bondi Beach she bought for $4.5 million in 2007. One for each of her three sons perhaps?

Saunders-Weinberg is the daughter of Westfield co-founder John Saunders, who died when she was 19, leaving his fortune to her and her sister Betty Klimenko. The sisters are ranked equal 37th on the Australian Financial Review Rich List 200.

The highest house sale in North Bondi was recorded last week when the home of interior designer Michalle Smith and architect Alex Smith, of CSA Architects, sold on the quiet for about $22 million.

It is one of the few houses on Ramsgate Avenue overlooking the beach, and was renovated by the Smiths 14 years ago.

Sources say it sold directly, and a caveat on title reveals it was bought by local businesswoman Lenka Dransfield, whose nearby Bondi Beach home has approved DA plans for a redesign by Smith’s CSA Architects.

Alex Smith denied local reports his house was bought by Melbourne-based billionaire Anthony Pratt, saying he had nothing to do with it, but declined to comment further on the sale.

Fashionable Abbotsford

Beyond the frills and puffed sleeves of Fashion Week it is heartening to see there is clearly life beyond the runway for former fashion designer Michael Bracewell.

Bracewell’s creations once dominated the annual fashion fest but a decade ago he shuttered his flagship fashion shop in the wake of the GFC and online shopping boom and now owns the successful A Pristine Carpet Clean business.

When Bracewell closed the doors to the retail outlet, he and wife Caitlin traded their former Drummoyne home to a Federation-era house in Abbotsford overlooking Parramatta River for $1.8 million.

The four-bedroom house has been renovated and extended in recent years and returns to the market not only in time for Fashion Week but amid one of the biggest property booms in Sydney with a guide of $4.5 million through The Agency’s Shad Hassen and Danny Hassen.

Modernist landmark finds new owners

Ceramic artist Odette Ireland and her lawyer husband Andrew Ireland have bought the modernist landmark Bowie House at Bayview for about $6.5 million.

The Roseville couple were one of six parties who submitted offers for what is billed as one of the finest modernist homes on the Northern Beaches peninsula, designed by acclaimed architect Peter Hall in the early 1970s soon after he completed the Sydney Opera House. Hall took over the design of the Opera House in 1966 after the departure of Jorn Utzon.

Incidentally, Michael King, of Di Jones, said two of the six offers on the property were sight unseen by expats based in Seattle and France, all of which pushed the result more than $1 million higher than the $5 million to $5.5 million guide.

The Irelands originally hail from Double Bay, where their late father, orthopaedic surgeon Basil Ireland long owned the waterfront home bought from former model sisters Princess Nike Arrighi Borghese and Luciana Chetwynd.

Woolwich trophy home on offer

Former chairman of Platinum Asset Management Michael Cole said in announcing his retirement last November that “working from home has softened me up and caused me to ponder wider social issues”.

Not only did he offer up the job, but now also his long-held Woolwich home for about $13 million through Ray White Drummoyne’s Chris Wilkins.

Cole has owned the waterfront residence – a near neighbour to the likes of Leighton’s Wal King and the Monte Christo estate of lawyer George Shad – since 1984, paying all of $460,000 at the time.

Potts Point’s lavish reno

The Victorian Italianate residence in Potts Point owned by Joy Morais, wife of corporate adviser Wrix Gasteen, is on offer to buyers for more than $13 million.

There’s been a lavish renovation on the Victoria Street residence set at the top of the McElhone Stairs since it last traded in 2016 for $5.55 million. At the time, Morais and Gasteen, a former chairman of Northern Territory onshore gas producer Central Petroleum and co-founder of Ikon Corporate, had sold their Lavender Bay home for $9.85 million to recruitment boss Geoff Morgan and his wife Ros.

Jason Boon, of Richardson & Wrench Elizabeth Bay, has set an expressions of interest deadline of June 25.

The sale comes just months after Fat Prophets founder and chief Angus Geddes pays $11 million for the former backpackers up the road, known as Kanga House, amid plans to return the row of three Victorian terraces back into a private home.

Fintech boss buys into Paddo

Fintech entrepreneur Yanir Yakutiel, founder and chief of alternative lender Lumi, has bought the Paddington home of property magnate Denis O’Neil and his interior designer wife Charlotte.

There is no disclosure on the sale price on records by Georgia Cleary, of Bradfield Cleary, listed it in the $5 million range following a major renovation by Charlotte.

The O’Neils bought it in 2014 for $2.29 million following the sale of their Bellevue Hill trophy home for $28 million to billionaire Bob Ell.

Dixon touches down in Darling Point

Former Qantas chief Geoff Dixon has new downsizer digs after his wife Dawn bought an apartment in Darling Point for $6,005,000.

The purchase set a high for the block of 12 apartments when sold by Raine & Horne Double Bay’s Alex Lyons, who then listed the couple’s parkside apartment down the hill with $10 million hopes and sold it for more than $11 million to property developer Robert Pagliuso and his wife Leify.

The Dixons are proving to be regular traders every five years, having traded in the harbourside CBD pad in 2014 for $7.45 million to move to Woolloomooloo’s waterfront, which they sold to buy their former Darling Point home in 2016 for $8.65 million from Sandra and Victor Topper, of the AI Topper hides trading family.