Deborah Thomas sells Point Piper home to join rush to Southern Highlands

Magazine maven Deborah Thomas has sold her Point Piper home to join the stampede of Sydneysiders moving to the bucolic surrounds of the Southern Highlands.

It was an off-market sale for her beachfront pad with no price revealed yet on property portals, but it is expected to have leveraged off the $4.5 million sale of another of the block’s art-deco apartments bought in April by Anna Mayo, of the Mayo hardware family.

Thomas will no doubt be missed by her local mates Malcolm and Lucy Turnbull, and Seven’s Bruce McWilliam, and likewise her neighbours in the block of six, among whom are Turnbull’s predecessor as the member for Wentworth, Peter King, and former Playboy magazine model Evelin Hegyesi.

Thomas, the former editor-in-chief of The Australian Women’s Weekly, purchased the three-bedroom spread in 2009 for $1.8 million when trading over from Annandale, and soon afterwards commissioned a complete redesign by architect Scott Weston, whose work was showcased in Belle magazine a decade ago.

Weston has been somewhat of a go-to among Sydney’s magazine editors who have also cashed in on this year’s property boom. The Queens Park home of former Vogue Australia editor-in-chief Kirstie Clements sold in March for $3 million, and former Qantas in-flight magazine editor-in-chief Susan Skelly sold her pad in Elizabeth Bay’s Birtley Towers in April for about $1.8 million.

Thomas and her partner Vitek Czernuszyn join a conga line of eastern suburbs identities who own at the end of the Southern Highlands superhighway, from billionaire Mike Cannon-Brookes and cattle farmer Theo Onisforou, to charity queen Skye Leckie, hairdresser Joh Bailey, ABC chair Ita Buttrose and James Packer’s former “Minister for Fun” Matthew Csidei, as well as North Shore local Nicole Kidman, and more recent buyers like F45 co-founder Rob Deutsch, furniture king Anthony Scali and dealmaker Adam Blumenthal.

Expect to see Thomas emerge on the Berrima paper title records later this year given her purchase of the Ashrowen country home that was being marketed by Dunne Real Estate’s Sandie Dunn recently for $2.9 million.

Another Mosman sale

Private equiteer Peter Wiggs and his wife Electra have had a rethink on the Mosman house they bought for $7.75 million last year next door to their long-held waterfront reserve home.

At the time it was assumed the couple were planning to consolidate the Federation residence with their own home they bought in 2005 for $3.9 million, but after a cosmetic renovation, they have changed their minds, no doubt aided in part by a subsequent 24 per cent jump in Sydney’s median house price.

Perhaps it’s one for the other immediate neighbour, Russian banker and Sydney FC owner David Traktovenko, who also bought his trophy home in 2005, paying $13.5 million.

Geoff Smith and Richard Harding, of Ray White Mosman, have again been handed the keys to the plum listing, this time with an $8.5 million guide ahead of an August 26 auction.

Still in Mosman, JP Morgan co-head of equities Steve Maartensz has pocketed what sources say is more than $19 million for his contemporary home in Clifton Gardens.

The five-bedroom residence was an off-market sale by Michael Coombs, of Atlas Real Estate, who declined to comment on the deal, leaving it to the paper trail to at least reveal the buyers’ identities – Enyi Lin and Jun Lin, directors of the Australia MC Investment Group.

The 1000-square-metre property was last traded 20 years ago for $2.05 million. In 2010 it was knocked down and rebuilt to a design by architect John Burgess, whose previous work at the time included Lachlan Murdoch’s former Bronte home and the Sunshine Beach house bought by Therese Rein and Kevin Rudd for $17 million last year.

Incidentally, Maartensz’s former co-head of equities, Dyson Bowditch, a recent hire by Matthew Grounds’ Barrenjoey Capital, has bought the grand Federation-era residence Toowong in Darling Point for $8 million off-market through Alison Coopes.

The 1902-built residence was once owned by the late Lady Susan Renouf, who sold it in 1991 for $1.23 million to the Cannon-Brookes family.

Meanwhile, former Wallaby Stephen Lidbury has sold his waterfront reserve in Mosman’s Beauty Point for more than $10 million.

Mark Manners, of Simeon Partners, declined to reveal the exact sale figure but, at that level, it was a handsome windfall on the 2015 purchase price of $6.3 million, even with the addition of a sauna and gymnasium in the years since.

Second time’s the charm

North Sydney councillor MaryAnn Beregi and her husband, Thomas Beregi, chief of debt recovery agency Credit Corp, are yet to score approval for major alterations and additions to their Kurraba Point waterfront home St Agnes, so fingers crossed they have a bit more luck with another waterfront house up the road they’ve just bought for $9.9 million.

This is the 1950s-built house which was designed by renowned architects Peddle, Thorp and Walker and which, for the past 40 years, was owned by accountant Alan Neilson and his wife Elaine. They listed it with Ray White’s Smith and Harding earlier this year.

The Beregi purchase comes as the couple pocketed $10 million for a double block of two houses in Neutral Bay on 2000 square metres that was bought by luxury developer and former model Cameron Macdonald, who sold his Mosman turnkey residence for $21.55 million earlier this year.

The Eagle has landed

Former rugby great and Manly Sea Eagles player Tony Melrose and his wife Deanne have made a seachange from Dural to Manly, selling their acreage home of the past seven years for $5.07 million.

The couple have owned their own Manly apartment for almost 20 years, having paid almost $2 million for the two-level pad in 2003 as a weekender, and trading up from one Dural home to acreage in 2014 for $3.7 million.

Melrose has ploughed the proceeds from Dural into the local Manly market, buying a three-level 1920s-era house for $6.1 million as a family investment.

Seaside for Wood

Stephen Wood, chairman of property data provider InfoTrack, has bought the Narrabeen beachfront home of businesswoman Ludmila Melnikoff and her husband Ellis King.

Records show the five-bedroom residence was an off-market listing by Belle Property’s Brendan Pomponio for more than $7.8 million and settled in Wood’s name for $8.05 million – double the $4.05 million it last traded for five years ago.

Melnikoff, who in the early 1990s was a business associate of former prime minister Malcolm Turnbull through her Siberian gold-mining venture Star Mining, commissioned the Ocean Street house with swimming pool and beachside fire pit after buying the original 1970s-style house five years ago for $4.05 million.

Avoca Beach’s $8.1m high

North Avoca no sooner scored a record high $7.9 million house price for the Central Coast’s prized beachfront than a beachfront cottage has reset the local market’s top sales mark selling for $8.1 million.

It was an off-market sale by McGrath’s Mat Steinwede to a buyer from Mosman, and the 1970s-era house is expected to be a knock-down rebuild once it settles to new owners.

The North Avoca property last traded in 2017 for $2.8 million when purchased by local car repair business owners Peter and Belinda Adams, ending half a century ownership by the Berrington family.

The 565 square metre property jumped almost 190 per cent in value in the four years the Adams family owned it.

The Avoca Beach record was last set in April when a designer house in North Avoca sold for $7.9 million to Telstra senior executive David Burns, topping the $7 million high set on Avoca Beach in February when a knock-down cottage was bought by pastoralist Kim Cottle, wife of construction boss Ben Cottle.

Vaucluse property developer’s gain

The grand Vaucluse residence sold by the British Foreign Office a year ago for $10.66 million returned to the market on Friday for more than $15 million.

Michael Pallier, of Sotheby’s International, listed the former home to the British consul-general with a guide for buyers that is 40 per cent higher than the sale price of last July, and sources say there is already interest at that level.

It is being sold by Jia Sanhui, the wife of Chet Qiang, head of Chinese-backed property development giant Vic Investments Group.

Jia is expected to remain in the eastern suburbs given she also purchased the modernist Point Piper residence designed by the late architect Anatol Kagan from race car driver and developer Ash Samadi in March for $15 million.

Jia’s Vaucluse residence was built in 1937 across a double block of 1500 square metres for then NSW Chief Justice Sir Frederick Jordan and his wife Lady Jordan to a design by architect John Drummond.

The British Government bought it in 1972 for $405,000 and it was most recently home to the consul-general Michael Ward until it sold in July last year.

Good Gerroa call

When Minack Advisors’ Gerard Minack buys a high-end getaway, it’s time to buy. After all, the former Morgan Stanley global strategist is best known for being one of the few to call the 2007 global financial crisis.

Records show the Mosman-based Minack and his wife Terese have bought a house on oceanfront reserve in Gerroa on the South Coast for $4.75 million.

The four-bedroom house, called Sea Cliff, is in well-heeled company on Stafford Street, with immediate neighbours like Guy Sebastian and pro surfer Sally Fitzgibbon, as well as Afterpay’s David Hancock down the road.

Settlement on Minack’s purchase coincides with a new Gerroa house price record of $5.26 million on the north-facing side of the headland thanks to the recent purchase by Bellevue Hill-based Susan Rattray-Wood.

Meanwhile, in Foxground, Bronte trophy-home owner Katie Jagger, wife of Cygnet Capital boss Darian Jagger, has paid $4.7 million for the 20-hectare property Lallylee.

The couple recently welcomed British White heifers to their new home, and no doubt plan to visit them there when they are able to escape the $16.8-million Bronte home they purchased two years ago.

Beaut Byron buy

Mosman-based Accenture Australia senior executive Trevor Gruzin and his partner Angela Smith have bought the Byron Bay hinterland property Koreelah for some $9 million.

This is the 1911-built homestead designed by architect Alexander Jolly that was built for Frederick and Ada Wareham and sold by their granddaughter, the late Eileen Rayward in 1998.

Property investors James Dawson and Anthony Pangallo purchased it in a ramshackle state for $825,000 and restored and renovated into what has been a popular holiday let since 2015.

Krissy’s downsizing plans

There are downsizing plans in play for television personality Krissy Stanley and her husband John with an August 11 auction set for their long-held home in the Sutherland Shire.

Stanley, who runs aged-care entertainment Kris’s Feathered Friends, is hoping to pocket more than $1.9 million when the Oyster Bay house goes to auction on August 11 through Highland Property’s Gavin Hill.

The couple have owned the three-bedroom house on 680 square metres since 1993, paying $249,000, and adding her more colourful interiors since.

Banker buys in Whale Beach

Just what Whale Beach needs, another banker in the neighbourhood. The latest to join the secluded beachside neighbourhood is Westpac senior executive Jason Yetton, who has paid $5.9 million on the quiet.

The four-bedroom house is a getaway from Yetton’s $8 million home in Bellevue Hill he bought in 2018, and makes him a near neighbour to fellow financial types like billionaire Chris Mackay (across the road), Macquarie’s former boss Nicholas Moore around the corner and Blackstone’s Chris Tynan more recently up the road.

Yetton bought the Whale Beach Road house from hedge fund doyen Paul Chadwick, of Nanuk Asset Management, and his wife Giselle, who bought it in 2005 for $3.5 million.

The Chadwicks did better on their former Mosman home Glasslyn, sold in 2017 for $15.8 million to mining magnate Travers Duncan’s daughter-in-law Francesca, prompting the Chadwicks to move to Kurrabe Point.