Sydney Theatre Company's Kip Williams buys late socialite's $2m spread in Potts Point

Sydney Theatre Company artistic director Kip Williams has settled on a new Potts Point home, buying the historic Byron Hall apartment of late socialite Bobby Bawden.

Company title records don’t disclose the sale price, but the apartment in the Beaux Arts style building was listed with a $2.19 million guide by Laing Real Estate’s Vicki Laing before it sold.

Williams was the STC’s youngest artistic director when appointed to the prized job two years ago, then aged 30, following the shock resignation of his predecessor, Jonathan Church.

His new three-bedroom spread with harbour views is an upgrade from the one-bedder up the road he sold last year for $750,000.

Bank exec to cash in on Mosman

When senior bank executives start putting their high-end homes up for sale, maybe it’s time to sell up? That’s the plan of ANZ’s Catriona Noble and her husband Simon, given plans to undertake another home rebuild project locally.

Noble was juggling her former job as chief of McDonald’s Australia when she and Simon also completed a rebuild of their Mosman home in 2011, four years after they’d bought the Beaconsfield Road property for $3.075 million, with DA-approved plans already in place.

The designer two-storey residence is set privately above a double garage and has four bedrooms, a separate guest suite and a whiz-bang swimming pool that extends from inside the house to outside.

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The Nobles are yet to buy elsewhere, preferring to secure about $7.5 million through The Agency’s Dino Gatti first.

When one door opens …

No sooner did Title Deeds break the news that finance boss Andrew Griffin had bought in Vaucluse for $17 million than his Woollahra home hit the market.

The chief executive of Balmain Group is trading up to the Harold Finger-designed residence of Reddam House founder Graeme Crawford and his partner Ian McLeod, having picked it up after a brief campaign through LJ Hooker Double Bay’s Bill Malouf and Ballard’s Clint Ballard.

Griffin’s Woollahra home is a two-storey contemporary house with a pool that he and his wife Yelena Alpatova built after they bought the property in 2007 for $2.18 million.

Malouf and co-agent Elliott Placks, of Ray White Double Bay, are asking $6.5 million to $7 million for the Edgecliff Road property.

Victorian values in Hunters Hill

Hunters Hill history buffs take note: the landmark Huaba mansion built for the son of noted colonial furniture maker and Sydney Alderman Andrew Lenehan is for sale by the estate of his grandson.

To explain, the grand Victorian residence was built in the late 1880s by Lenehan Jnr behind his parents’ Windermere estate, and sold in 1915 to the Rev. Alfred Rolfe to become the Malvern School.

In 1962 it was slated for demolition to make way for a carpark for the Hunters Hill Bowling Club, before Australia’s No.1 tennis champion of the 1950s, Lew Hoad, and his wife Jennifer saved it by buying it for £12,550 in 1964.

The Hoads sold it in 1976 for $135,000 to the late orthopaedic surgeon Bert Bencsik and his wife Diana. Lenehan’s late grandson Bernard Lenehan, who died last year, reclaimed the family home in 1994 for $1.408 million.

Tracey Dixon, of McGrath Hunters Hill, is asking $6.9 million ahead of the December 1 auction.

Third time’s the charm

Hedge-fund manager Daniel Droga has twice tried to sell his Surry Hills sculptural penthouse, Droga Apartment, for $1.5 million in 2005 and $2.5 million in 2010 – only to withdraw it from all decent offers. But it seems he was third-time lucky, given a sale price of $3.7 million.

The two-bedroom spread is atop a converted warehouse Droga and a syndicate of friends commissioned from  architects Neil Durbach and Camilla Block, and for which they won a Wilkinson Award in 1997 and Robin Boyd Award in 1998.

For the past five years the Woollahra-based Droga and his wife Lyndell have gifted the penthouse to the Australian Institute of Architects for use as a residency for international architecture practices, hosting the likes of Nord Architects, Copenhagen, and Finnish architect and philosopher Juhani Pallasmaa. Until now, when Droga finally agreed to part with it through BresicWhitney’s Will Phillips.

Northwood departure

As boutique fund manager Arnhem Investments winds down its existing Australian and global equities funds, chairman George Clapham and his wife Lisa are downsizing from their waterfront home in Northwood.

The four-bedroom house on a battle-axe block of 1200 square metres on Cliff Road was home to architect Peter Duffield before the Claphams bought it in 2005 for $2.125 million.

Belle Property’s Simon Harrison has a $5 million guide ahead of the November 24 auction.

Greener pastures for Gray

Art and fashion curator Dr Sally Gray is selling her two-storey Camperdown penthouse, given plans to move to Melbourne at the end of the year.

Dr Gray, whose book Friends, Fashion and Fabulousness was published last year, bought the two-bedder in 2007 for $705,000, and has renovated the contemporary spread since with her fine appreciation for colour and greenery.

At the time, Dr Gray was downsizing from her former Surry Hills property on Crown Street, sold in 2006 for $1.08 million.

Michael Harris, of Raine & Horne Newtown, has set a November 24 auction with a $1.2 million guide.

Movers and shakers

Mechanic Steve Davidson and his wife Carmen have been busy on the Vaucluse market since they sold the Macquarie Lighthouse’s Keepers Cottage two years ago for $7.5 million.

At the time the couple traded over to a four-bedroom house down the hill for $5.95 million, which they have recently sold for about $6.53 million through Ray White Double Bay’s Evan Williams in conjunction with Belle’s James Nixon.

And the hot tip from sources is the Davidsons are the circa $17 million buyers of the architect Michael Suttor-designed residence of tech entrepreneur Gary Cohen and his wife Suzanne, which sold earlier this year through Ray White’s Elliott Placks.