Tennis court and pool sell for $5.3 million in Manly, house not included

The bullish value put on Manly’s exclusive neighbourhood of Fairy Bower has been underscored by the $5,305,000 sale of a tennis court and swimming pool on a 20-year lease-hold owned by the Catholic Church. 

Marketed as “level vacant land” it adjoins the Mediterranean-style home of former Rugby Union chief Gary Flowers and kidney specialist Carol Pollock, who sold it through Belle Property’s Steve Thomas.

The almost 700 square metres with no dwelling on it is expected to be redeveloped into a family home once the sale settles.

Flowers and Pollock first listed it last September with their historic home given a $10 million-plus sale figure for the double 1400-square-metre property. However, after buyers shied away from the double-digit purchase the family opted to keep their long-held family home and just sell the adjoining block.

Set on the high side of exclusive Bower Street, the residence was built in 1932 and designed by architect Bertrand James Waterhouse in his classic Mediterranean style with Spanish Mission influences. Flowers and Pollock bought the hilltop home on the double block in the early 1990s and undertook an extensive renovation a decade ago that retained its many Spanish Mission-style arched windows and doorways.

While the family are said to be planning to keep the main residence, Thomas said the sale leaves no doubt that it is worth more than the $5.3 million paid for the adjoining block.

Fairy Bower has been scoring plenty of bullish sale results in recent years, despite the majority of properties being lease-holds of the Catholic Church.

Seven West Media’s chief executive Tim Worner and his wife Katrina sold their home on the high-side of Bower Street, having had a guide of more than $6 million. That sale followed the Worners’ $9.5 million purchase of a year ago for a designer residence across the road and on oceanfront, from Ross Lane, he of the Oroton fashion empire. That same house sold for $8 million in 2010. Lane then bought the nearby harbourfront home of his brother Tom Lane and his wife Emma for $10.5 million.