Tesla chair Robyn Denholm buys Whale Beach cottage for $6.25m

Tesla chairwoman Robyn Denholm has certainly had cause to celebrate recently. The same day it was revealed she had been re-elected to the top post in Elon Musk’s electric car company, she took possession of a beachfront cottage at Whale Beach for $6.25 million.

It’s a fairly humble two-bedder for the Aussie tech titan who replaced Musk as chair two years ago, but it comes with hard-fought DA approval to demolish the two-bedroom house to make way for an architect Walter Barda-designed residence with a swimming pool and a double garage at a cost of $3.4 million.

The DA was subject to a rowdy chorus of objections from locals last year, among them Ellerston Capital’s chairman Ashok Jacob and Altius Group chief Derick Borean before it was approved for the previous owners with amendments on Christmas Eve. Ho, ho, ho.

Peter Robinson, of LJ Hooker Palm Beach, wouldn’t comment on the sale despite it being lodged on settlement records, so it remains unknown if Denholm plans to make good the DA.

If she decides to go ahead with the DA she is certainly good to pay for it, given she cashed $US32 million in stock in August.

Denholm,  who grew up at her parents’ petrol station in the Sydney suburb of Milperra, was previously the chief operations officer at Telstra before she was appointed chief financial officer in October 2018, resigning five weeks later to take up role as chairwoman of Tesla.

Keeping it in the neighbourhood

Mosman’s trophy home owners have long made a sport of buying the house next door, as the likes of artist Ken Done, Ros Oatley and Markus Kahlbetzer well know, and now the recently resigned Rugby Australia director Peter Wiggs has joined in, snapping up his Federation neighbour for about $7.75 million.

It remains unknown what Wiggs plans to do with the 1915-built house given no comment on the deal by Ray White Mosman’s Geoff Smith, but it gives him equally vast frontage to Taylors Bay as his new neighbour, Russian banker and Sydney FC owner David Traktovenko.

The private equity veteran and his wife Electra bought their Iluka Road home in 2005 for $3.9 million and soon after commissioned a three-level Castlepeake Architects-designed residence. He then set a $21 million apartment record for the North Shore earlier this year when he settled on an off-the-plan purchase in McMahons Point.

Maxwell moves on from Sydney Wharf 

Michael Maxwell, the former property chief at collapsed global investment advisory Babcock & Brown, does not look to be returning from his sojourn on Lord Howe Island anytime soon, prompting him to list his Sydney Wharf penthouse for $20 million.

Maxwell was playing host to Byron Bay superstar Chris Hemsworth and family early this week when he gave them the keys to his newly opened Island House luxury resort, as showcased on Hemsworth’s Instagram feed.

When Maxwell bought his local bolthole in the north-east end of Sydney Wharf in 2008 for $6,968,000, the highest apartment price ever paid in Sydney was the $16.8 million the Moran family paid for the Bennelong penthouse at Circular Quay.

Values have moved into stratosphere since, thanks to businessman Robert Salteri’s $27 million purchase of a penthouse in the Opera Residences, James Packer’s $60 million purchase in Crown Resorts’ tower, and Lendlease’s $140 million sale of the top three floors of its yet-to-be-built Tower 1 at Barangaroo South.

It almost makes Maxwell’s three-bedroom spread with a rooftop pool and three-car garage look cheap given the $20 million guide of McGrath’s Robert Alfeldi.

Art dealer’s Darling Point prize

Brett Whiteley art dealer Steve Nasteski has listed his $11 million Darling Point apartment following his recently completed lavish $5 million renovation.

The Byron Bay-based Nasteski purchased the whole-floor spread in the waterfront Santina block a year ago for more than $7.5 million from former model Marie Spies, widow of funeral services businessman Ian Spies, and soon after commissioned a no-expense-spared refurbishment and redesign  by architect Stephen Varady.

The four-bedroom spread was originally two three-bedroom apartments before it was amalgamated about 40 years ago by the Spies family with separate living areas, separate study, four car spaces and panoramic views over the harbour.

It returns to the market in a far more glamorous state with stand-out finishes that include three built-in Bang & Olufsen televisions, Fibaro Smart Home automated system, a vast open-plan living and dining area with siberian oak flooring, a Flos magnetic track lighting system, German glass bifolds and a calacutta marble kitchen with glass splashback and high-end appliances and brass fittings.

There is a separate butler’s kitchen, a 23-metre walk-in wardrobe in the parent’s retreat, separate study, laundry and wine room.

Nasteski moved to Byron Bay early this year following his purchase of the trophy home Whalewatchers on Wategos Beach for $12 million, leaving his Darling Point apartment redundant.

Jason Boon, of Richardson & Wrench Elizabeth Bay, has set a November 18 auction.

DJ Annie takes to Vaucluse

Annie Conley, daughter of the late aviation pioneer and philanthropist John Conley, and her sommelier husband James Hird look set to move to Vaucluse thanks to her $12.8 million purchase of Eze House.

The ultra-contemporary residence on Parsley Road was put to the market earlier this year by Irish artist David Egan and his wife Eleni given their plans to return to Europe, listing it with Sotheby’s Harriet France.

There were strict non-disclosure terms on the sale result, but settlement revealed Conley’s purchase (without the need for finance), ending her house hunt throughout the harbourside eastern suburbs since she sold her Tamarama home a year ago for $15.75 million.

The former DJ did well from her beachside residence, having purchased it for $13 million in 2017 from fashion pioneer Robby Ingham, and renovated it before she sold it to Karen Michael, daughter of the late property mogul David Burger and his widow Dianne Burger.

Freight boss trades in Bellevue Hill

As freight boss Arthur Tzaneros prepare to wave his brother Anthony down the aisle to marry Poppy O’Neil he will also be $11 million richer behind the scenes thanks to his off-market sale of his Bellevue Hill house.

Tzaneros, who co-heads up his family’s freight giant ACFS Port Logistics, bought the Kambala Road residence just two years ago for $10.45 million from Justin Topper, of the AI Topper leather goods family, and a few months later sold his Bondi Beach bachelor pad for $5.9 million.

Topper also had a brief ownership of the house, having bought it three years earlier for $8.3 million from property developer Andrew Boyarsky​.

Ecuyer’s Wentworth relocation

Danielle Ecuyer, the former London stockbroker who ran against Malcolm Turnbull for the seat of Wentworth in the 2007 federal election, has listed her Bondi Junction cottage for a November 7 auction.

Ecuyer bought the three-bedroom house for $906,000 in 2003 when she returned to Sydney from the United Kingdom, and has since renovated and extended the Lawson Street house.

Ecuyer goes to market just six months after her new book Shareplicity went to press. Belle Property’s Edward Brown has set a $2.1 million to $2.3 million guide.

North Bondi’s original charmer

Former diplomat Dean Bialek and founding TedxSydney curator Janne Ryan cashed in their North Bondi property this week, scoring well above their $9.5 million hopes for their art deco block of apartments.

An opening bid of $10 million by one of the seven registered buyers prompted a bidding war between two parties that took the result to $11.3 million under the hammer.

The block of four apartments – with no parking – was listed with Christie’s Peter Anderson and Raine & Horne Bondi Beach’s Conrad Panebianco given treechange plans by the owners: Ryan’s plans to develop her cattle property in Dungog and Bialek is moving to the family farm Tilba Tilba near the  Victorian border.

The sale ends 35 years ownership of the downstairs apartment by Ryan, since he bought it for $80,500 and added the adjoining pad in 2007 for $520,000 from author John Birmingham. Bialek purchased the top two apartments in 2003 for $875,000 and its neighbour in 2016 only to amalgamate them as one luxury spread that was shortlisted for Best residential Design at the 2018 Australian Interior Design Awards  and featured in Belle magazine’s February 2018 edition.