Peter Garrett makes $2.25m return to Sydney buying Annandale worker's cottage

Rock star, activist and former Labor MP Peter Garrett hasn’t stayed away from the Sydney market long since he and wife Doris Ricono-Garrett did a tree-change two years ago. The couple have returned to local property records as the $2.25 million buyers of a Victorian worker’s cottage in Annandale.

The Midnight Oil frontman moved to Kangaroo Valley in 2018 when he and his wife Doris Ricono-Garrett bought a two-hectare property called Hartland for $1.2 million, marking a return of sorts to the Southern Highlands where they sold their Mittagong acreage in 2016 for $2.8 million.

True to the quintessential Baby Boomer rite of passage the couple then dabbled in property flipping after he resigned from federal parliament in 2013, buying a rundown terrace in Paddington for $2.7 million in 2015 and after a decent renovation selling it three years later for $5.25 million.

The couple’s new three-bedroom house is up the road from the Annandale Hotel, dubbed by Garrett one of the “spiritual homes to Australian artists” in 2012 given its place as a live venue of choice for an impressive list of rock legends, among them Midnight Oil, The Sunnyboys, Regurgitator, You Am I, Hoodoo Gurus and Spiderbait.

Records show it was an off-market purchase through Pilcher Residential.

Tiffany Tilley set to farewell Paddo

Socialite Tiffany Tilley is set to quit the eastern suburbs, listing her Paddington terrace amid plans for a sea change to Palm Beach.

It’s certainly a fresh start for the former wife of Ben Tilley, currently keeping his bestie James Packer company in Aspen, and comes soon after Tiffany’s friends were forced to dismiss gossip she is dating Red Hot Chili Peppers frontman Anthony Kiedis.

Tilley bought the Victorian corner terrace two years ago for $4.2 million from barrister Matthew Darke, SC, when she was downsizing from her $19.8 million Point Piper townhouse – sold to British media boss John Newton.

The Tilleys were already familiar names among Point Piper’s trophy home owners at the time. Before they bought the townhouse in 2011 for $13.6 million from next door neighbor Malcolm Turnbull, they owned the nearby Craig-y-Mor mansion, purchasing it from the late Rene Rivkin in 2004 for $16.15 million and selling it four years later for $32.4 million to Chinese Communist Party princeling Zeng Wei and his wife Jiang Mei.

Pricing is becoming a fraught business in the current market. Sources say Tilley wants $5 million for the three-level terrace but Ray White Woollahra’s Randall Kemp is not offering a guide, instead claiming buyer interest in the $4 million to $4.5 million range.

Up the road in Woollahra, Kemp has set a Moncur Street record at $6.5 million for the terrace of Dom Ogilvie, former wife of high profile art dealer Tim Olsen. Records show it was bought by veteran fund manager John Murray and his wife Catherine, who are returning from the Southern Highlands where they sold their Bowral property Little Minnows for $5 million late last year to pastoralist Roy Chisholm, whose late father, Tony Chisholm, was the godson of King Edward VIII.

Meanwhile, Woollahra’s heritage-listed Struan Lodge has changed hands, with Port Jackson Partners founder Terrey Arcus and his wife Anne transferring it to their daughter Solene and her Macquarie banker husband Simon Gregory-Roberts for $14.5 million.

Built in the 1920s on a subdivision of the Hawthornden estate next door, the Hardy Wilson-designed residence was previously owned by entertainment veteran Paul Dainty — and played host to the likes of Mick Jagger and Barry Humphries — before he sold it in 1990 for $2.9 million.

Arcus, chairman of the Sydney Symphony Orchestra, picked it up a few years later for $2.66 million, adding the adjoining blocks soon after where he and Anne remain in residence.

Duffys Forest luxury acreage on offer

Finance entrepreneur Simon Tripp and his wife Brenda no doubt appreciate the unique attraction that luxury acreage offers in these times of home isolation, given they are offering their Duffys Forest estate Jabilusa to buyers on the quiet.

The trick for selling agent Richard Simeon will be securing the $9 million to $9.5 million guide for the six-bedroom mansion – complete with tennis court, swimming pool and equestrian facilities.

The latest price is less than half the $20 million it was on offer for back in 2012 when the Tripps were planning to move to the historic Fernhill estate in Mulgoa of former property tycoon Warren Anderson.

However, that move to Sydney’s western outskirts never eventuated and Fernhill was instead sold to the state government for $27.25 million.

The Tripps were previously upper north shore trophy home owners, buying the half built Warrawee mansion Bremon in 1999 and selling it completed in 2005 for $10.1 million.

The Tripps won’t be homeless if they sell. They bought a beachfront weekender in Whale Beach in 2018 for $5.3 million.

Sam Neill scores in Double Bay

Proof that there is life to the real estate market amid the COVID-19 restrictions comes the sale of Sam Neill’s Double Bay house under the virtual hammer for more than the $3.5 million reserve.

Ballard’s Paul Ephron and Clint Ballard declined to reveal the exact result, but they had a $3.5 million to $4 million guide at the start of the snappy three-week campaign, and Neill was in town to see it sold – albeit at a social distance from the agents.

The Kiwi star of the Jurassic Park movie franchise bought it in 1996 for $839,000, having already bought the house next door three years earlier for $372,000. Next door is now owned by his former wife Noriko Watanabe. Neill splits his time between Sydney and the Canberra home of his partner, ABC political correspondent Laura Tingle.

The Whale Beach weekender of ANZ’s fixed income trading boss Rakesh Jampala and his wife Vesudha also scored a sold sticker.

Admittedly the initial $3.7 million hopes of last year are unlikely to show on settlement, but given a coronavirus discount in more recent weeks sources say he might come close to the $3.05 million he paid in 2017.

LJ Hooker Palm Beach’s David Edwards was keeping schtum on the result, but the hilltop double block was previously owned by a company owned and directed at the time by Anjuna Global’s LA-based chief executive James Vaile, brother of former Nationals leader and deputy prime minister Mark Vaile.

Barrister Stefan Schonell and his wife, Di Jones real estate agent Priscilla Schonell pulled off an impressive $12 million sale of their Fox Johnston-designed home in Mosman.

The couple have developed a penchant for property flipping in recent years since they bought the house next door in 2001 for $1.4 million and commissioned an architect Peter Willett-designed house they sold in 2015 for $7.1 million to Alex Dower when he was chief executive at Sonoma Baking.

The Schonells then bought this house for $3 million and listed the five-bedroom residence with LJ Avnu’s Michael Coombs and Bo Zhang on the quiet.

The buyer is a little known Shao Ying Zhang, from China, whose only paper trail in Australia is now a caveat lodged on title.

Film producer to cop loss on Millers Point terrace

LA-based film producer Gary Hamilton is set to sell his historic Millers Point terrace for a loss.

The founder of one of the country’s leading film producers, Arclight Films, bought the three-bedroom house opposite Barangaroo Reserve in the state government’s public housing sell-off in 2016 for $3,525,000, and renovated it soon after amid plans to move there when he returned to Australia.

But Hamilton and his wife Ying Ye remain based in Beverly Hills from where he has been credited with playing a role in launching the careers of fellow Gumnut Mafia alumna like Russell Crowe, Cate Blanchett, Baz Luhrmann and Hugh Jackman.

McGrath’s Andrew Stewart and Richard Shalhoub are asking $3.25 million.

Bellevue Hill’s beauty deal

Former long-time AMP chair Patty Akopiantz and her husband, former Archer Capital partner Justin Punch are no doubt eagerly awaiting settlement on the $15 million exchange of late last year on their Bellevue Hill home.

Despite attempts to keep the sale under wraps by The Agency’s Ben Collier, updated records reveal the pre-coronavirus buyer was Liza Lyons, wife of Andrew Lyons, owner of the Beautopia hair and beauty chain.

The Lyons clan will presumably be up-grading from their nearby five-bedroom house they bought in 2008 for $3.5 million. Or that looked like the plan when they listed the Bellevue Hill residence in March with D’Leanne Lewis, of Laing+Simmons Double Bay, but the property has since been withdrawn from the market.

Meanwhile, expect to see more of Justin Punch and Patty Akopiantz at Tamarama Beach once they complete a renovation of the $4.95 million house they bought overlooking the surf break from Partners in Performance director Michael Huggins and his wife Katherine.

South Coogee record high

Fund manager Duncan Saville and his wife Julie have found a new Sydney home on the South Coogee clifftop fit to replace their former Vaucluse trophy Loch Maree.

Records show Julie bought the clifftop residence in South Coogee of medico Stephen Simmons and his writer wife Carla for $9.8 million, in the process setting a suburb record that tops the $8.5 million high set by barrister Nancy Mikhaiel in 2015.

Saville, whose Allectus Capital is a major shareholder in Afterpay, previously owned the architect Michael Dysart-designed waterfront residence Loch Maree for 22 years before they sold it in 2015 for $24 million to hotel mogul Dr Jerry Schwartz.

Dr Schwartz only held it three years, offloading it in 2018 for $29.5 million to venture capitalist Clark Perkins and his wife Marguerite when he traded up to Singapore tycoon CK Ow’s Phoenix Acres for $65.25 million.

Hakims virtual windfall

The daughter of telecom entrepreneur Tony Hakim, Alexandra Hakim, became one of the first Sydney home sellers forced into the online auction system recently when she sold her Hunters Hill home under the virtual hammer for $3,375,000. Not bad for a 25-year-old.

The sandstone cottage was bought by Hakim soon after her 20th birthday in 2014 for $1.9 million and scored a major redesign in the years since before McGrath’s Tracey Dixon listed it in February. Despite the ban on public auctions midway through the campaign, it had four online bidders pushing it above the opening offer of $3.1 million.

The Hakims are well-known Hunters Hill locals. Tony Hakim owns a grand statement home on Woolwich Road complete with tennis court and swimming pool and Alexandra’s uncle Mick Hakim owned a beachfront mansion at the end of the peninsula in Woolwich that was quietly sold to Eddie Obeid for $8.5 million in 2010 but never settled after the deal was revealed by the Herald‘s Kate McClymont. The house later starred in Nine’s 2016 sitcom Here Come the Habibs.

Alexandra and her builder husband Michael Nehme, of Taste Living, are now scouting up-grader digs in the $6 million range nearby.