Justin Hemmes pipped by $6.575 million bid at Bellevue Hill auction

When the Bellevue Hill home of News Corp Australasia executive chairman Michael Miller sold under the hammer on Saturday for $6,575,000 it seemed like everyone was trying to buy it for someone else.

Of the seven registered bidders there was bar tsar Justin Hemmes vying for it on behalf of his former partner Kate Fowler, there were a few buyer’s agents hoping to secure it for their clients, and the successful buyer Tony Veale, who purchased it for his step-daughter Valentina, who is expecting her first baby.

Such generosity proved a windfall for Rupert Murdoch’s Australian lieutenant, given the result was more than $570,000 above the reserve.

An opening bid to auctioneer Stuart Davies of $5.25 million was quickly outstripped to well above the $5.5 million guide, and subsequent bids stalled only briefly at $6.05 million when it was announced the house was on the market.

Hemmes sat calmly with Fowler throughout the ordeal, raising his paddle about 10 times before he dropped out at $6.55 million.

It was understood Hemmes was hoping to buy the five-bedroom house for Fowler following their split in July.

Veale, founder of GDI Property Group and chairman of Grosvenor Capital, topped Hemmes’ best offer with a $6,575,000 bid.

Miller, who sits on the board of News’ majority-owned property group REA, purchased the property in 2010 for $3.95 million from late Macquarie Bank chairman David Clarke and his son Angus.

The three-storey house opposite Woollahra Golf Club was designed by Sue Whelan Architects about 15 years ago and renovated again by the Millers.

The property was listed with Michael Pallier, of Sotheby’s International, given talk Miller and his wife Tonya are hoping to upgrade locally into the suburb’s double-digit market.

Paddington’s $14m offer

Meanwhile, the Paddington trophy home Alster House that was once owned by former prime minster Malcolm Turnbull was passed in on a vendor bid of $14.5 million.

Sources say The Agency’s Ben Collier received an offer of $14 million for the award-winning Victorian terrace of lawyer Naomi O’Brien, wife of former Macquarie executive Paul O’Brien.

The property is best known as being the first to crack the $2 million mark when bought by the Turnbulls in 1988. The couple sold it for a loss seven years later for $1.73 million.