Steven Lowy expands beachfront holding with $14.2 million buy of semi next door

Westfield’s co-chief executive Steven Lowy has long had a penchant for Camp Cove. He first bought on the Watsons Bay beachfront in 1991 for $2.5 million, commissioning a contemporary house on the double block by Allen Jack Cottier architect Peter Stronach, which won the 1994 WIlkinson Award for outstanding architecture. He added a sandstone residence next door in 2003 for $9 million and soon after outlaid $2.5 million amalgamating them into one residence.

So when the tired semi next door went to auction this week it was no surprise to locals on Victoria Street that the buyer was chairman of the Football Federation of Australia Steven Lowy and his wife Judy.

The latest purchase takes Lowy’s property holdings to five blocks along the beachfront totalling more than 2500 square metres.

And clearly money was no object given the $14.2 million sale price was pushed up $4.45 million over the reserve thanks to eight registered buyers.

The winning bid was placed by property developer Phil Wolanski, who was enlisted by his friend Lowy to bid on his behalf.

Brenton Gadsby, of Bradfield Cleary, and Donna Burke, of Bickmore-Hutt Realty, were keeping quiet on the buyer’s identity this week, confirming only that “money was no object” and the “buyer wasn’t in the room”.

But the Watsons Bay locals knew better. 

Lowy is regarded as a popular resident of Camp Cove to his neighbours, many of whom were sent a box of mangoes last summer after a truck accessing his house blocked the street.

Lowy’s office declined to comment for this story and it remains unknown what the couple plans to do with the extra 524 square metres.

The home was listed as a deceased estate following the death of Jim Webb late last year, with the sale ending 90 years of ownership by the Webb family. 

Wolanski and Lowy’s connections extend beyond beachfront real estate. 

Wolanski’s Denwol Group and Lowy’s Westfield are behind the Bondi Junction residential Archibald tower under construction at Bondi Junction, and Wolanski stepped down from the Football Federation of Australia board in 2015 just as Lowy was appointed chairman.

Winky Chow moves to Vaucluse

When your dad buys one of the most expensive homes in the country, and has a spare six bedrooms and two guest quarters on offer for family, it makes sense to move back home.

And so it is for Winky Chow, the daughter of Australian-Chinese businessman Chau Chak Wing who bought the Tzannes and Associates-designed mega-mansion, La Mer, from casino mogul James Packer and his former wife Erica sight unseen in 2015 for $70 million.

At the time inspections were left to his daughter Winky, a one-time adviser to former premiers Bob Carr and Morris Iemma and a director of Kingold Media, a subsidiary of her father’s Kingold Group. 

Chow bought her contemporary five-bedroom house across the road from Hunters Hill High School with her mother So Chun Chau in late 2013 for $5.3 million when it was almost new.

It has returned to the market for $5.85 million and goes to auction on November 11 through Tracey Dixon, of McGrath. 

The family is not expected to list the former family home Mr Chau bought on the waterfront in Hunters Hill in 1995 for $3 million.

Rich lister Huang Bingwen’s $21.5 million buy

Billionaire businessman Huang Bingwen has snapped up the Buckley’s Bar site in the Bennelong building at Circular Quay for $21.5 million.

The Huang family, ranked 25th on this year’s Financial Review Rich List, is best known for buying the Point Piper mansion Altona mansion for $61.8 million last November.

Buckley’s Bar is expected to continue to operate from the 408-square-metre retail space, according to the selling agent Anthony Bray, of Cushman & Wakefield.

It was off-loaded by a company owned by businessman Karl Kazal, owner of The Rocks Cafe and one of eight brothers involved in hospitality.