Rich Lister Ian Malouf buys $20m Palm Beach getaway

Rich List garbo-turn-yacht broker Ian Malouf has joined the crush of prominent eastern suburbs families on Palm Beach’s Snapperman Beach, buying a weekend getaway for about $20 million.

The beachfront house has long been owned by the McNiven family, bought in 1997 for $2.06 million and held by the late businessman John McNiven until recently when Malouf negotiated to buy it directly.

Malouf declined to comment on the purchase, saying that he didn’t know that information was out yet, and settlement would reveal the price.

The Dial-a-Dump founder, who sold the company for $578 million in 2018 to Bingo Industries, has become a rare breed among his fellow multimillionaires in recent years opting to rent rather than own his own home, kicking back at former Crown chairman Rob Rankin’s Woollahra trophy home Woodlands until Hollywood hunk Chris Hemsworth took over the lease a few months ago.

Come summer, Malouf can expect to share the Pittwater waterfront with a who’s who of eastern suburbs families. Think the O’Neils, the Laundys and rag-trading Gazals, as well as furniture retailer Anthony Scali,  Sydney University Chancellor Belinda Hutchinson, Laser Clinics co-founder Alistair Champion, property baron Stephen Burcher, tech billionaire Mike Cannon-Brookes and Dominic Roche, who set a high for the calm water side of Palm Beach in 2019 when he bought a double block and one of the area’s few tennis courts for $20.5 million.

Palm Beach’s surfside market hasn’t been forgotten in the boom. The home of the late Mary Barry, widow of leading orthopaedic surgeon Hugh Barry, has sold before it could hit the market.

The sale ends more than 30 years of ownership by the Barry family, making them stalwarts at the prized north-facing end of the beach alongside billionaire Dick Honan, society queen Judy Joye and Dr Shane Moran.

LJ Hooker’s David Edwards declined to confirm widespread talk of a $15 million result despite being credited with the sale.

AMP boss cashes in on Sydney

If you believe the Woollahra rumour mill, outgoing AMP chief Francesco De Ferrari and his wife Elisabetta De Ferrari-Wicki have sold their heritage mansion Weeroona for about $13 million, which would be a bullish result in anyone’s financial fortunes, but more-so given the couple purchased it 12 months ago for $7.5 million.

Admittedly, when they purchased it, the economic outlook was of a looming depression and a subsequent collapse in housing prices, but values have only soared since and to sweeten the deal the couple have completed a renovation by architect Michael Robilliard that was approved by council last September at a cost of $650,000.

Strangely, it isn’t so much the bullish sale result that’s up for debate but the actual transaction, given no comment from De Ferrari and a cryptic response from recent frequent visitor Michael Dunn, of Richardson & Wrench Double Bay, that the property is “presently not for sale”, despite the latter having already escorted a slew of buyer’s agents through the property in recent weeks.

Settlement will reveal all.

Still in Woollahra, lawyer Bill Conley has sold his Victorian home for $10.67 million after a marketing campaign by The Agency’s Ben Collier.

Records show it was bought by Natasha Joel, granddaughter of the late PR great and state MP Sir Asher Joel.

Joel and her husband, Jeremy Deutsch, Asia Pacific president of New York-listed data centre operator Equinix, have meanwhile sold their Paddington home for $4.7 million, again through Collier.

Farriss farewells Sydney

Just months after INXS founding member and songwriter Andrew Farriss released his debut solo album, the 62-year-old has set a June 19 auction on his long-held Newport house.

Farriss and his wife Marlina are cattle farmers near Tamworth by day, having bought the cattle farm Piedmont Station near Tamworth, complete with an 1871-built homestead for more than $2 million in 1992.

In recent years Farriss has become more involved in the Tamworth music scene, leaving little time for visits to his former Sydney home and prompting the listing with Stephanie Hammond, of Shores Real Estate.

The couple purchased the classic 1950s weatherboard house in 2007 for $1.4 million, and 14 years later buyers are expected to pay more than $3 million.

It follows his big brother Tim Farriss’s purchase last year of a waterfront house in Narrabeen for $3.9 million with his wife, Bethany.

Very happy adman

Award-winning commercial director Paul Middleditch, the creative mind behind Carlton Draught’s “Big Ad” and Yellow Pages’ “Not Happy Jan” ad, had no sooner listed his Vaucluse home recently with plans of a June 5 auction than it sold.

PPD’s Alexander Phillips was primed with a $5.5 million guide, but this is 2021, and it now carries a $6.91 million sale price.

And to think the five-bedroom house with a pool last traded in 2003 for $3.1 million when sold by Amanda Zsebik, granddaughter of Concrete Constructions founder Alan Charles Lewis.

South Coast getaway play

The weekends of Beautopia hair and beauty chain owner Andrew Lyons and his wife Liza look like they are sorted after the latter purchased a South Coast beachside house for $4.715 million.

This is the Coalcliff holiday home Leap Legal Software executive chairman Richard Hugo-Hamman put to auction in February, prompting a heated competition among 14 registered parties that pushed the result well above the $3.5 million guide of Ray White Helensburgh agents Mattias Samuelsson and Simon Beaufils.

The same house last traded in 2017 for $3.35 million when sold by former retail chief Mark McInnes.

The Lyons family are based in Bellevue Hill, where they bought the $14.7 million Federation home of former AMP chair Patty Akopiantz and her husband, former Archer Capital partner Justin Punch in 2019.

$26 million hopes for Schimann’s trophy home

Semi-retired dental surgeon Rolf Schimann is set to hand over the title to his long-held Watsons Bay waterfront home to a buyer with the requisite $26 million to $28 million given his plans to move to the country.

Records show the former duplex last traded in 1990 for $2.675 million, which was good money at the time, given the larger house next door sold two years later for $2.1 million to Hong Kong press baron Ching-Kwan Ma.

Ma has since left the coveted waterfront address, selling two years ago for $16.8 million to coal miner Chris Ellis and Sydney Angels investor Sandrina Postorino, who own next door.

Schimann has listed it with Michael Dunn of Richardson & Wrench Double Bay.

Mosman’s latest high-end deal

Boston Consulting Group managing director Brad Noakes has sold his Federation Queen Anne-style mansion in Mosman for $12.6 million.

Belle Property Mosman’s Tim Foote had a $12.5 million-plus guide on the 1910-built residence, ending more than a decade of ownership by Noakes since he bought it for $6.5 million in 2010.