Rossi family's Northwood estate sells for $24m to neighbour Owen Chen

Fund manager “Owen” Ouyang Chen and his wife Xiao Hong Li already owned a sizable chunk of waterfront real estate in the harbourside suburb of Northwood thanks to their $5.7 million home purchase in 2007, but they have joined the ranks of the largest land holders on the lower north shore after they bought the Rossi family estate next door for more than $24 million.

The couple, both originally from the Guangdong province of China, now claim a 7547-square-metre parcel complete with their original 1980s house, the Rossi family’s 1915-built plantation-style manor and a vast garden with a tennis court, orchard and a stone boathouse.

Details on the sale have remained a tightly guarded secret since offers closed on the historic Rossi home, and Ray White Lower North Shore’s Geoff Smith and Richard Harding are yet to return calls, but local sources have confirmed the more than $24 million figure.

At that level it is the second-highest house sale on the lower north shore, topped only by the $25 million Mosman record set by Swans chairman Andrew Pridham for the purchase of Hopetoun in 2018.

The sale ends 60 years of Rossi ownership since the late travel industry doyenne Mary Rossi purchased it in 1961 for £16,000 on the recommendation of her artist friend Lloyd Rees.

Chen and family already own a slew of properties in the neighbourhood, including three mansions on nearby Arabella Street in Longueville worth a total of $25.5 million, but Owen Chen is best known in Australia for founding fund manager and lender Acapital, the group behind one of the first SIV funds in Australia.

Beck sets record, again

The last time AFR rich lister Christian Beck owned property in Riverview, he set a suburb high of $4.93 million, selling his designer waterfront home. Four years later he’s done it again, buying back the same house but this time for a high of $6 million.

At the time it sold, the LEAP Legal Software founder and his then-wife Belinda Young were off to Longueville, buying an $8.5 million house and adding the house next door a couple of years later for $4.13 million.

Beck has since been based at his $4 million McMahons Point pad, but records show he has returned to the same Walter Burley Griffin-inspired residence he sold to the Avis family after it was listed with McGrath’s Brent Courtney.

Still with the rich listers, WiseTech billionaire Richard White has taken the $5.375 million he recently scored for his Lane Cove mansion and gone to town to buy a four-bedroom spread in The Eliza opposite Hyde Park for $6.5 million.

Better yet, Kieran Warwick made his debut on the AFR’s Young Rich List this week, and to celebrate it looks like he bought a top-floor apartment at Manly overlooking the harbour for $6.6 million.

It’s a quality first-home purchase for the 32-year-old, whose registered address is a rented two-bedroom flat in Zetland, but still humble compared to his big brother Kain, ranked 7th on the list with an estimated worth of $879 million and whose property portfolio includes houses from North Bondi to Tamarama and Bronte totalling $33 million.

Kieran had to settle for being 22nd on the kids’ list with his older brothers Aaron, at 26 and Grant at 33, thanks in large part to their world-first blockchain-based video game Illuvium.

Sir Bob departs Point Piper

Point Piper is set to lose one of its more colourful property owners after Kiwi billionaire Sir Robert Jones put his long-held sub-penthouse up for sale for more than $6 million.

The three-bedroom spread on St Mervyns Avenue near Seven Shillings Beach is no doubt redundant given closed borders to New Zealand, where Sir Bob is one of the country’s richest men.

Sir Bob, who founded the New Zealand Party in 1983 and is a prolific writer with some 19 books to his name, purchased the three-bedroom spread with a north-west aspect over the harbour in 2002 for $3.375 million from former Citroen dealer Daryl Morris and his wife Carole.

Brad Caldwell-Eyles, of 1st City Real Estate Group, has listed it with his colleague Julian Hasemer ahead of a November 23 auction.