Aussie chief James Symond buys $13m knockdown-rebuild in Bellevue Hill

Aussie Home Loans chief James Symond and his wife Amelia have bought a more than $13 million mansion in Bellevue Hill with plans already lodged to demolish and rebuild a designer residence for $9.5 million.

The couple’s new digs is the Girrahween property owned by liquor businessman Gabor Kemeny, which was listed two years ago with initial hopes of $15 million.

Pillinger’s Brad Pillinger and Michael Paroulakis declined to reveal the sale price, but took over the listing last year with a $14 million to $15 million guide, and sources say it sold for more than $13 million just days after Christmas last year. Settlement will confirm the result.

The dilapidated house on a double block of 1400 square metres was owned by the Packer family for almost half a century after Sir Frank Packer bought it in 1954 for £13,500. It was sold by his media mogul son Kerry Packer for $2.66 million in 2001, four years before he died.

The Rob Mills Architecture plans lodged with Woollahra Council earlier this month by the Symonds showcase a design for a two-storey residence with a pool set above street level and basement garaging.

The vast floor plan includes a home gymnasium, nurse’s quarters, separate study and library, formal and informal living and dining rooms, internal lift, and five bedrooms on the top floor with a “treatment room”.

Symond’s purchase was only revealed after he was named as the applicant on the DA plans before council, and his purchase confirmed thanks to a caveat lodged on title.

If approved, the residence would be an impressive step-up in property for Symond from his long-held apartment at Walsh Bay.

The nephew of Aussie Home Loans founder John Symond was one of the original buyers into Mirvac’s Walsh Bay development, buying his wharf apartment for $2.365 million in 2000 and adding the apartment next door in 2005 for $2.2 million.

His wife Amelia, billed as an actor, writer and kinesiologist on her LinkedIn profile, was bridesmaid at the wedding of former Walsh Bay resident Ryan Stokes and Claire Campbell in 2016.