Billionaire Kerr Neilson buys $5.3m Castlecrag house

Billionaire fund manager Kerr Neilson has a good eye for real estate. While his Rich List contemporaries are more likely to be found eyeing off investment banker Garrick Hawkins’ $55 million waterfront trophy home in Vaucluse or Mosman’s $30 million residence Danieli, Neilson clearly spied the “local architectural treasure” in Castlecrag recently marketed for sale ahead of a May 30 auction.

Certainly there were a few savvy architects hoping to pick up the modernist residence on 1580 square metres of waterfront reserve that was built in 1955 by architect John Brindley as his family home before it last sold in the mid-1960s to retired surgeon Frank Fisher and his wife Penelope.

Ray White Lower North Shore’s Anthony Cowie and Richard Harding had nine registered buyers on the night, but not one could match the deep pockets of the Platinum Asset Management co-founder, who ultimately ended the competition by countering any bids by a good $100,000 to take home the title deeds for $5.3 million.

Neilson’s purchase – revealed on settlement – has buoyed local hopes he will restore, not detonate, the modernist home given he has already shown his appreciation for heritage real estate.

Last November he bought one of the oldest surviving residential buildings in Sydney when he paid $5 million for a row of three 1840s dwellings known as George Talbots Townhouses in Millers Point and has lodged the requisite DA to restore and extend it into a single residence.

Read more about Sydney’s top transactions in Title Deeds in Domain magazine this weekend.