Freight boss Arthur Tzaneros joins family property splurge with $32m Vaucluse digs

The eastern suburbs Tzaneros family, owners of the country’s largest privately held freight logistics company ACFS Port Logistics, have been on an impressive property splurge this year – pandemic and property boom be damned.

Six months after parents Terry and Anne Tzaneros bought a Point Piper waterfront house for $38 million, son Arthur is widely rumoured to be joining the good folk of Vaucluse’s parkside Olola Avenue, paying $32 million for the home of Balmain Corporation chief Andrew Griffin and his wife Yelena Alpatova.

The off-market sale is understood to have been sealed by LJ Hooker’s Bill Malouf and his son David, and comes just three years after Griffin purchased the house with tennis court and swimming pool for a comparatively cheap $17 million, although there has been a major renovation in the meantime.

Griffin is making an impressive return to Woollahra – where just three years ago he sold his home for $6.6 million – and is set to take the keys to the suburb’s finest residence, Rosemont, for $45 million from Margot, Lady Burrell.

Tzaneros, who sold his Bellevue Hill home a year ago for $11 million, joins an interesting line-up of buyers keen to live on Vaucluse’s Olola Avenue in recent months. In July, banker Ben Alexander bought for $25 million and last month former Test cricket caption Michael Clarke paid $13 million.

Tzaneros’s little brother Anthony, 33, and his wife Poppy have also bought into the boom a year after they married, paying $7.45 million for a matrimonial home in Bellevue Hill that will no doubt score a do-up by Poppy’s own boutique interior design company POCO Designs she founded with her mother Charlotte O’Neil.

New playlist for Spotify’s Lancaster

Spotify Australia head Mikaela Lancaster and her iflix-founder partner Mark Britt are trading in their northern beaches home on the Clareville waterfront for $11.5 million to move across town to Croydon.

The tech industry power couple won’t be slumming it in the inner west. Records show they have purchased a beautifully renovated Federation residence on a vast 1300 square metres with a swimming pool for a suburb high of $4.75 million.

Four years ago the couple were recently returned expats when they bought Pittwater designer digs with a boathouse and deepwater jetty for $5.75 million from Swiss-based Alexandra Clausen, wife of tech entrepreneur and former rich-lister Simon Clausen – ending a protracted 956 days sales campaign.

The property goes to auction on November 4 through McGrath’s James Baker.

One big house switch for Harris

Kevin Rudd’s former press secretary and One Big Switch co-founder Lachlan Harris has bought a Californian bungalow in Bronte for $7.35 million after it spent just eight days on the market.

The purchase marks a return to property title records for Harris, a  member of the Harris Farm Markets family, since 2017 when he sold the Glebe’s historic property The Retreat for $4.85 million.

Buyers need to be quick in the eastern beaches. In Tamarama, it took less than a week for Bank of America’s head of equities, Peter “Strawbs” Phillips, and his wife Susie to sell their home for what a well-placed source says was more than $16 million.

Not bad for a house purchased in 2015 for $3.25 million, even with a new residence taking shape on the double block in the meantime at a cost of $2.5 million – complete with home theatre, spa and pool.

Selling agent Alex Phillips of PPD declined to reveal the sale price, confirming only that it had sold well before its scheduled October 23 auction, so it remains unknown how close it came to challenging the suburb’s $16.5 million high set in February by cryptocurrency entrepreneur Kain Warwick.

Rag trader Ray Pillion has also bought into Tamarama following the sale of his $9 million Darling Point pad. He’s paid $14.5 million for the five-bedroom home of Command Recruitment chairman and chief executive Mike Collins.

Longueville’s record run

The Longueville house price reset this week when prominent media veteran Nick Falloon and his wife Diane sold ahead of this weekend’s scheduled auction.

McGrath’s Brent Courtney was yet to respond to enquiries on the price, but he was seeking $15 million when it hit the market last month.

The Domain chairman (publisher of this column) is downsizing to Potts Point, where the couple have undertaken a major renovation of the Villard building penthouse they purchased two years ago for $15.5 million from retired car dealer Laurie Sutton.

The property set a record when it last traded in 1999 for $3.185 million, and comes just weeks after a house a few doors away on the same stretch of waterfront sold on the quiet for more than $12 million by real estate mogul Ping Wei.

Still on the pre-auction sales run, billionaire Richard White secured a sold sticker on his Lane Cove investment house ahead of this Saturday’s planned competition for more than the initial guide of $4.5 million to $4.9 million.

Belle Property’s Jess Goodman said the sale price was to be undisclosed, at least until settlement.

The founder of WiseTech Global has been pocketing $2350 a week for the four-bedroom mansion since he bought it three years ago for $4.18 million.