Rich list vitamin moguls buy Lavender Bay's record-breaking $16.5m house

The rich list-founders of a multinational vitamin company have emerged as the buyers behind this year’s most expensive sale on the lower north shore, setting a Lavender Bay record of more than $16.5 million.

The bullish purchase is just the latest high-end purchase by Australia’s vitamin industry bosses who are making good on China’s voracious appetite for Australian-made supplements.

Jina Chen and her husband Alex Wu founded Na­­ture’s Care in 1990 and last year sold a controlling stake of the business to Beijing-based private equity fund JIC Investments and Tamar Alliance Fund for $360 million, cementing their place on this year’s AFR Rich List.

The couple is expected to downsize to the six-bedroom, six-bathroom residence when the property settles in a company name later this year having secured the home three weeks after it hit the market for well above the $15 million to $16.5 million guide.

The exact sale price remains undisclosed by Belle Property Mosman’s Tim Foote, but sources confirm it was for more than $16.5 million, smashing the $16.28 million high set in 2017 for a waterfront apartment built originally for Lang Walker’s dad Alex Walker.

The luxury residence was previously a 1930s block of flats when it last sold in 2008 for $5.3 million by  Morgan Williams and Giuseppe “Jo” Palumbo, founders of the independent dance music label Central Station Records.

It was bought by interior architect and start-up investor Christina Wood and her husband Chris Bedingfield, a co-founder of boutique real estate manager Quay Global, who undertook a major redesign to convert it into a single residence, adding a top-level parent’s retreat, an internal lift, swimming pool and separate guest quarters.

Lavender Bay’s prestige housing market has scored a run of top-end sales in recent years, thanks in part to its harbourside position and iconic views of the Harbour Bridge. Of the 147 houses in the suburb, this is the fifth double-digit sale in two years.

Long-time Lavender Bay local, NSW Governor Margaret Beazley recently listed her home of the past 30 years for $11.5 million following her move to the official vice-regal residence Government House in May.

Wu and Chen, estimated to be worth  $758 million on this year’s Australian Financial Review Rich List, are based in Ingleside, where they bought their eight-bedroom mansion on acreage for $7.7 million in 2015  from aviation industry boss Jonathan Milligan.

Fellow rich list-er Stephen Ring, the Melbourne-based businessman who in 2015 sold the Swisse vitamin business for $1 billion, bought a Byron Bay holiday house on Wategos Beach late last year for $8.5 million from art collector and former Skilled Group chief Greg Hargrave.

Swisse chief executive Radek Sali followed up the sale of Swisse in 2015 to the Hong Kong-listed company Biostime International by up-grading his Melbourne mansion the following year to a $12.5 million residence in South Yarra.

In 2016, Blackmore’s largest shareholder Marcus Blackmore up-graded his northern beaches home when he bought a $9.25 million knock-down rebuild on the waterfront in Bayview.