Property magnate pays $35m cash for Double Bay house to knock it down

Property magnate Steve Grant has emerged as the $35.5 million – cash – buyer of a landmark pink house on the Double Bay waterfront, for which he has already lodged plans for a multi-million dollar knock-down rebuild.

Grant’s purchase from Ernestine Ireland, widow of the late orthopaedic surgeon Basil Ireland, makes it the suburb’s second-highest house sale, topped only by the $38 million paid in 2015 for the waterfront home of former Multiplex chief Andrew Roberts and his wife Andrea.

Once completed, it is expected to be a new Sydney home for Grant and his wife Eliza for when they’re not at their thoroughbred breeding stud Silverdale Farm in the Southern Highlands.

Sources say it was sold by Alison Coopes, of Agency by Alison Coopes.

The Irelands had hoped it would set a suburb record when it was initially listed for $45 million with another agent, but sold for almost $10 million less.

The property last traded in 1978 for $200,000 when sold by artists Princess Nike Arrighi Borghese and Luciana Chetwynd, daughters of the late dancer, socialite and model Eleanor Arrighi.

Grant exchanged to buy the house last year, and lodged plans in March for $5.8 million worth of “alterations and additions” and a partial demolition. The proposed three-level residence designed by Tanner Kibble Denton Architects would be set behind a double garage with a central courtyard, four bedrooms and harbourside pool.

Grant is the founder and chairman of property development and investment giant Capital Corporation, which pioneered the development of Sydney’s Norwest Business Park, as well as joint venture projects like the Kogarah RSL, Penrith Paceway, Cronulla Sharks Leagues Club, Bondi Junction RSL and Hillsong Church.

Burradoo slow mover

High-end property flipper Matt Csidei, long known as James Packer’s sidekick, has bought a historic mansion in the Southern Highlands for almost half what it was listed for three years ago.

The purchase comes just months after Csidei completed a major restoration and renovation of the nearby, state heritage-listed mansion Anglewood House, and sold it for $14.5 million to trophy home collector Annie Cannon-Brookes.

Anglewood House was a drawn-out restoration project for Csidei, whose expertise no doubt benefited from his previous job procuring Packer’s lavish homes and gigayachts.

Csidei’s next project is Knoyle, which was sold by antique dealers Gary and Maryanne Nolan after a protracted and discounted sales campaign. It was initially for sale in 2021 with a $15 million guide that dropped to $12 million last year and $9.5 million more recently.

Records show it sold to Csidei’s corporate interests for $8 million.

Like Anglewood House, Knoyle is another of Burradoo’s grand Queen Anne-style mansions. It was built in the 1880s by British architect Maurice Adams as a country retreat for Charles Fairfax, of the newspaper dynasty.

It was known as Kerever Park for the 70-odd years that it was owned by the Sacred Heart nuns, but renamed Knoyle after the Nolans bought it from the religious society in 2014 for $3.685 million.

It is set on the highest point of Burradoo and includes 10 bedrooms, six bathrooms, three dressing rooms, four powder rooms and a seven-level private labyrinth.

Odds on favourite

Pioneer racehorse trainer Betty Lane Holland, the first woman to be fully licensed as a trainer at Randwick, was between races on a Saturday in the mid-1980s when she popped out to have a stickybeak at a house. It was, after all, just across the road, and her mother had lived there when she was young.

The terrace was called Arthursleigh and, as Lane tells it in her memoir I Did It My (Their) Way: “I had gone only to look, no thoughts of buying, but when bidding lulled at what seemed well undervalue, on impulse, I put my hand up.”

Official title records show that “Betty Denise Holland and Warner Harold Holland” (better known as the late trainer Tiger Holland) paid $104,000 for the three-bedroom house, coming 61 years after her parents had sold it.

Betty died last year, aged 97, prompting her estate to list it with McGrath’s Marnie Seinor with a $2 million guide.

Twin sales campaigns

Former Australian cricketer Kate Blackwell has taken a leaf from her twin sister Alex Blackwell’s book, and listed her Maroubra apartment.

Blackwell, who played in the national team that won the Women’s World Cup in 2005, purchased the top-floor apartment with two bedrooms and a northerly aspect in 2021 for $1.15 million, and rented it out since.

Christopher Breedon, of BresicWhitney, has a $1.2 million guide ahead of an August 31 auction.

It comes just a couple of weeks after Alex, the former Australian women’s cricket captain, and wife, English cricketer Lynsey Askew sold their Ashfield apartment for $920,000.