Mansion fetches a pretty penny

THE sale of Portsea cliff-top spread Ilyuka – expected to set a Victorian residential property record of more than $25 million – is almost finalised.

Expressions of interest in Ilyuka, owned by millionaire and former Computershare director Michele O’Halloran, closed on Saturday.

Real estate sources suggest the 1930s Spanish mission-style home, squeezed on to an outcrop on Mornington Peninsula where Port Phillip meets Bass Strait, would fetch $26 million from an Australian buyer.

Kay & Burton’s Gerald Delany, the managing director of the agency handling the sale, said he would not reveal the buyer or the price.

”I anticipate there will be some announcement of a sale over the next day or so but at the moment I’m not at liberty to say,” Mr Delany said. ”It’s been up for sale. It’s been promoted in the $20 million-plus bracket. It’s going to achieve that.

”It is a part and parcel of the negotiation that they [the purchaser] not be disclosed,” he said.

Ilyuka, a sprawling house built for American oil tycoon Harry Cornforth in 1929-30, was marketed globally with a campaign that included a five-minute movie set in the mansion. The movie reportedly cost more than $200,000 to make and focused on a day in the life of a fictional family, the Crawfords, played by television presenter Brodie Harper and her husband.

Portsea cliff-top properties are generally among the most expensive in Victoria and are tightly held by their wealthy owners. Ilyuka’s neighbours include trucking magnate Lindsay Fox and investment banker John McIntosh.

Ms O’Halloran bought the mansion in 1999 for $7.5 million. If it fetches $26 million it will top the record set by the sale of The Sisters in nearby Sorrento two years ago for $19 million.

The previous highest price for a residential property in Victoria was set by art dealer Rod Menzies when he paid $18 million in 2007 for the Stonington mansion in Glenferrie Road, Malvern.

Matthew Baxter, director of property valuers Market Line Opteon, said: ”There’s a strong demand from the highest level of wealth in Australia for Portsea and there’s limited supply of property.”