Radio king John Laws scores $3.42m for long-held Woollahra cottage

Radio’s “Golden Tonsils” John Laws has offloaded a somewhat tired, free-standing cottage in Woollahra for $3.42 million, 32 years after he bought it.

Laws never lived in the 250-square-metre property, but he was a Woollahra local when he bought it in 1988 for $295,000. Laws long resided in a far more salubrious home designed by Espie Dods around the corner until 2004 when he sold it for $7.7 million to move to the Finger Wharf in Woolloomooloo.

The three-bedroom house was renovated about 20 years ago by his late wife Caroline, “the Princess”, who died earlier this year.

After being rented in the decades since, it was listed in April with a $3.2 million guide by Ray White Double Bay’s James Keenan and, thanks to a few interested buyers, sold above expectations.

Records show it is the last of seven properties to be offloaded by Laws’ private investment company Smith Smyth and Jones, of which one was a rural retreat in Ravensdale on the Central Coast that was sold in 2000 for $233,250 to one of Laws’ frequent guests on his talkback show, the late NSW premier Neville Wran and his widow Jill.

The buyer of Laws’ Woollahra cottage is Helena Downs, wife of childcare mogul Martyn Downs, owner of Bowral’s Royal Hotel.

The Downses are usually based in the Shire, where they sold their waterfront Cronulla home in 2016 for $7.25 million to downsize to a nearby waterfront apartment for $4.62 million, and retain a Southern Highlands property Trungley Stud in Bundanoon.

Triguboff moves to ‘simplify’ portfolio

Rhonda Triguboff, wife of billionaire “high-rise Harry”, hasn’t let the COVID-19-led economic shutdown stop her from offloading a few redundant investments of late.

First to go was a recently renovated art deco apartment in Double Bay for $1.285 million. It wasn’t quite the $1.55 million asking price of March, but will certainly offer a handsome capital gain given it was “sold” to Triguboff in 2001 for $1 from Yolanda Serafino, the wife of Double Bay’s acclaimed fashion retailer and Triguboff’s own tailor of choice John Serafino.

Then a two-bedder in Meriton’s development Somerset Mews in Balmain was sold after a recent renovation, this time for just above the $1.2 million guide.

“She’s just simplifying her property portfolio,” said Meriton’s Marco Guardala, given the task with selling the apartments on behalf of the boss’s wife. No pressure.

No word yet on whether there will be a sales campaign up-coming on Triguboff’s apartments in Bondi Junction’s The Oscar building and Museum Towers in the CBD.

Teo looking to upsize from Northbridge pad

Jonathan Teo’s renowned creative flair saw his career soar in decades past as creative director of the likes of Saatchi & Saatchi and BBDO, but it is a recent four-year stint in Berlin at the invitation of the German government on an artist’s visa that has prompted him to list his Northbridge house soon after his return to Sydney to buy something with more space for a studio.

Teo bought the 1969 residence designed by architect Harold Smith in 2004 for $1.2 million when he was creative director of ad agency Young & Rubicam, but a few years after he renovated his new home he moved to Hong Kong at the behest of then agency chairman Hamish McLennan to head up their China office overseeing the creative launches of luxury brands like Yves Saint Laurent.

McGrath’s Rose Farina is asking $3.5 million ahead of a July 5 auction.

Incidentally, the last time Teo sold in Sydney, his designer Tamarama home drew the attention of Hollywood star Toni Collette, who not only bought the $1.88 million house but also about 90 per cent of his furniture and Japanese antiques with it.

“I still have two pieces that she rejected,” Teo said, adding that the furniture that was bought with this house in mind was again on offer with the property.

Bidding farewell to Nirvana 

Music promoter Ken West, co-founder of the iconic Big Day Out festival, has sold his two-hectare property at the Central Coast’s Macmasters Beach.

The block of land is aptly named Nirvana, a reference perhaps to the then little-known alternative rock group from Seattle that headlined at the first BDO festival in 1992 and went on to become one of the best-selling bands of all time.

The property was purchased in 2008 for $595,000 in the company name Big Films, of which West is sole owner, and it is set just across the road from the acreage weekender of West’s partner, film producer Cathy Rechichi.

George Brand Real Estate’s Matthew Ellis was asking $800,000 to $880,000 for the property, and has been sworn to secrecy on the result.

Maggie T’s enduring home style

Investment banking veteran Rob Mactier has bought a two-level apartment in Rushcutters Bay that was first owned by fashion icon Maggie Tabberer soon after the block was developed by James Packer and Theo Onisforou.

Sources say about $4.3 million was the agreed exchange on the Sydney bolthole of Melbourne socialite Deborah Gray, wife of Webber Design’s Paul Webber, after a sales campaign by Jason Boon, of Richardson & Wrench Elizabeth Bay.

Mactier and his wife Sally set a Roseville record last year when they sold their long-held Federation home for $8.5 million.

Adcock’s buyer revealed

Elizabeth Fang-Xu Dai, who heads up the Australian subsidiary of China’s leading medical device manufacturer Beijing Demax Medical Technology, has snapped up a waterfront weekender in Newport for $8.9 million.

The seven-bedroom mansion with private beach and jetty was owned by Pandora Jewellery founder Karin Adcock, who listed it with $10 million hopes last year, but revised the guide to $9 million more recently when listed by Ray White Palm Beach Prestige’s Noel Nicholson.

Dai up-graded her Mosman home real estate late last year, buying the Balmoral slopes home of prominent Griffith businessman Peter Bartter and his wife Jennifer for $11.21 million, and selling her former home on Mosman’s Clanalpine Street for $8.8 million.

Speedway star’s slow sale

Two years after speedway star Barry Graham and his wife Kay listed their Southern Highlands property Charlotte Park it has sold.

Sources say a local buyer paid fairly close to $6 million, which was the revised guide being asked by tight-lipped Cameron McKillop, of The Agency, but well down on the original $7 million hopes of 2018.

The 57 hectare property with two homesteads, pool, garaging and riverfrontage is next door to the smaller downsizer rural holding next door where the Grahams have long since moved.