Low-key quinella for lavish mansions

Young entrepreneur Adam Garrison, who – among other ventures – rescues old buildings from demolition, is believed to have offloaded Armadale’s landmark Redcourt mansion.

The media-shy businessman bought the Orrong Road property from the state government in 2009, before undertaking a four-year restoration of the 127-year old Queen Anne manor and its substantial 3500 square metre grounds.

Developed by glass and timber merchant Edward Yencken, the 14-bedroom red-brick mansion was occupied as a student rooming house before falling into disrepair and being abandoned in the mid 1990s.

Garrison’s high-end renovation employed fashion designer Akira Isogawa to refit what was a music room and artist David Bromley to redesign the children’s room.

Shannon Bennett – Garrison’s friend and a business partner for another venture – designed Redcourt’s kitchen.

Property industry insiders whisper that Redcourt has sold for a speculated price of above $10 million, earlier this year, but neither a transaction nor figure could be confirmed with Kay & Burton’s Gerald Delany and Ross Savas, who declined to comment on any aspect of the campaign.

In the neighbouring suburb of Toorak, a well-heeled buyer has purchased the mansion at 4 Whernside Avenue, in a premier pocket of the suburb off Albany Road, which is home to one of Australia’s most powerful retail moguls, John Gandel.

RT Edgar’s Mark Wridgway did the deal for Whernside and is believed to have achieved above $12 million.

The transaction was done off-market, as is customary for a lot of luxury sales in Melbourne.

Whernside is a small but prestigious street that also adjoins Hopetoun Road, where Wridgway inked another $12 million-plus sale, for No. 48-50, earlier this month.