Bishop's Court in Adelaide snapped up by local businesswoman

South Australia looks to have clinched a new property price record with the sale of a grand 164-year-old Victorian mansion that’s been home to the past 10 bishops of the state’s Anglican diocese.

In what’s proved manna from heaven for the cash-strapped church, the heritage-listed Bishop’s Court estate in North Adelaide was bought for what’s believed to be more than $7 million by a local Adelaide businesswoman.

While the agent involved in the sale had to agree to sign a strict confidentiality contract to keep the price a secret, industry sources not authorised to speak publicly suggested to Domain the final sum was more than $7 million but short of the $10 million the church initially hoped for when it was first put on the market in February 2020.

The current resident, Anglican Archbishop Geoffrey Smith, wouldn’t comment on the final sum either, but said: “We are delighted that the property will continue to be loved and cared for as a family home.”

The regal building, with a massive golden Celtic cross on its facade, was built between 1851 and 1856 by the first bishop of Adelaide, Augustus Short, in the then ecclesiastically fashionable Tudor-Gothic style. A small room off the library was converted in 1912 to a chapel with an altar, stained-glass windows and bench seating.

Standing on 5300 square metres of manicured grounds, the two-level house, with a vast wine cellar, has seven bedrooms, four bathrooms, a grand entry hall, lobby and regal staircase, a large dining room and a series of formal and informal family rooms.

The new owner is founder and owner of national homewares and lifestyle stores Wheel & Barrow Mary Kotses, who plans to renovate the building, and says the extensive grounds provide great scope to create a beautiful family estate, surrounded by gardens.

“My husband and I would often walk past and admire the beauty of Bishop’s Court,” she said. “It certainly is a rare and unique estate. South Australia has some amazing late-Victorian mansions. However, nothing quite compares to the scale of Bishop’s Court.”

The expressions-of-interest sale has had tongues wagging throughout South Australia, with enormous speculation surrounding the final sale price. “There is so much conjecture around what it is, and so many people talking about it,” said Klemich Real Estate agent Steve Alexander.

“Even over $7 million is good for Adelaide and shows how our market has remained quite buoyant despite COVID-19. These big estate properties throughout the suburb always attract a lot of attention and speculation.”

The church decided to sell the estate last year and invest the proceeds, with a more modest home being bought for the archbishop.    

“It was certainly not a decision taken without some sadness,” said Archbishop Smith who has lived there with his wife Lynn for the past three years. “For almost 170 years, Bishop’s Court has been occupied by successive diocesan bishops and their families and it has been central to many events in the history of the diocese.

“But times and needs change and the sale was embraced by the vast majority of the synod, as the church’s ‘parliament’ is known. It is time to make the value of the property available to the church’s work in communities around the diocese.”

The sale of Bishop’s Court, on Palmer Place, was first considered in 2005 and again in 2008 when the diocese was facing raising a multimillion-dollar loan for payouts to child victims of sexual abuse. Other options, like renting out the property and subdividing it, were also considered before the decision was finally made to put it the whole estate up for sale.

The Adelaide property market has had a comparatively modest slowdown. Recently, ANZ bank predicted just a 6 to 9 per cent fall in prices from peak to trough through the current recession, compared with 10 per cent nationally, and 15 per cent in Melbourne.

John Taylor, of Taylor & Taylor Real Estate, said there was now a lot of demand for homes in Adelaide from both local and interstate buyers, but supply was generally scarce, although less so near Bishop’s Court.

“At the moment there is a lot of development happening in North Adelaide,” he said.  “But prices are quite steady despite the economic uncertainty.”

The estate was sold by Jamie Brown, of Booth & Booth Real Estate. He broke his own record sale of $7 million in 2016 for “Ivanhoe” in Gilberton, which smashed his previous one of $6.5 million for “Stormont” in Glenelg in 2010.

But, of this new record, he would only say: “In this instance, given a confidentiality clause, I am restricted from commenting from an agent/market perspective.”