Gretel Packer shows midas touch selling Hudson House office for $13.5m

Billionaire Gretel Packer just can’t seem to help but turn a profit since she settled on her share of her father Kerry Packer’s estate. Take her latest property foray, selling the family office headquarters in the CBD’s landmark Hudson House for $13.5 million to Ramsay Health Care chairman Michael Siddle.

Siddle purchased the whole-floor suite in a company name, Woolwich Investments, presumably named after the waterfront residence he has shared for almost 30 years with his wife Lee.

The sale represents a more than $5 million capital gain for Packer since she purchased it less than four years ago for $8.37 million.

Packer isn’t the only rich-list occupant of the landmark 1960s building opposite the Domain. Her investment adviser Will Vicars bought office space in 2016 for $5.84 million, and the Fairfax family’s Cambooya company bought into it in the same year for $7.6 million, adding more space last year for $11.66 million.

Seven’s star listing

No sooner did the Middle Cove home of Nine late legendary newsreader Brian Henderson hit the market than Seven news stalwart Ann Sanders and her husband, orthopaedic surgeon Andrew Strokon have listed their Hunters Hill home.

The couple have owned the French-inspired villa since 1991 when she fronted Seven’s national morning news bulletin, paying $1.25 million and undertaking a lavish renovation over the years since.

MGrath’s Tracey Dixon is yet to confirm her guide for the six-bedroom residence with a swimming pool, separate guest house on 1500 square metres, saying only that it will be in the “double-digit millions”.

Six days to sell ‘baby Grand’

Tim Holmes a Court, a relative of the late corporate raider Robert Holmes a Court, and his partner Amanda Valmorbida, of Melbourne’s wealthy Lavazza coffee family, have bought their first Sydney home together, paying $5.45 million for a 1930s-built, F. Glynn Gilling-designed “baby Grand” in Woollahra.

Monika Malone, the former wife of iinet co-founder Michael Malone, took all of six days to sell it through Ray White Double Bay’s Michael Finger, four years after she purchased it for $4.1 million.

It was previously owned by former Vogue Living editor Robyn Holt and her actor husband Jim Holt, until 2016 when they sold it for $3.75 million to move to the Southern Highlands.

Family favours

Architect Renato D’Ettore is renowned for his landmark house designs and, more recently, for the slew of suburb records they have fetched in recent years.

Take the residence known as Coogee Castle, designed for his sister and brother-in-law Yolanda and Orazio Camuglia and sold in May for $16.85 million to Finder co-founder Fred Schebesta, and Surry Hills’ Italianate House, designed for his nephew Mark Camuglia and sold for $11.5 million last year.

While the Camuglias are best known as commercial property investors, D’Ettore has undertaken another striking home design in Woollahra for another nephew, Jason Camuglia. It is set to hit the market for $17 million through The Agency’s Ben Collier.

The newly completed contemporary European-style residence is set on the site of three Victorian terraces consolidated over the course of 15 years. All that remains of the original homes is the fairly under-stated facade.

Inside is a Tardis of open-plan living areas with heated terrazzo floors and sliding walls of glass that open to a north-facing courtyard flanked by two-storey pavilions – none of which bears any resemblance to its original terrace footprint.

DA approval took two years, and it was five years in construction to create what is essentially a three-bedroom home with mezzanine study, and a basement with gymnasium, rumpus room, steam room and cellar lit by glass portals to the courtyard and the pool above.

The terraces of Rush Street are no stranger to high-end consolidations. A double terrace a few doors away long held the suburb high of $16 million after it was purchased in 2008 by WorleyParsons’ John Grill.

A masterclass in flipping

Sydney’s high-end flippers continue to make good amid soaring values. Take the latest deal by recruitment boss Phil Kerry and his wife, former Olympian Anne-Maree, who have sold the Woollahra house Larissa for what sources say is close to $23 million.

Even after a major renovation of the heritage-listed residence – no easy feat given its previous life as a childcare centre – that’s a good windfall, given they purchased it in late 2019 for $8.5 million.

Prior to the Kerrys, it was owned by The Benevolent Society for 38 years, and its sale two years ago prompted outrage from locals given it meant the closure of the Sir Philip Baxter Childcare Centre.

Ballard’s Mark Lowe is rumoured to have negotiated the sale, but given no comment and the off-market nature of the sale, it is left to council records to reveal the approved $2 million renovation by Hancock Architects created what is effectively a luxury five-bedroom residence with a pool.