New chapter for Booktopia co-founder Steve Traurig in $9.5m Hunters Hill digs

The co-founder of Australia’s largest online bookstore Booktopia, Steve Traurig, and his wife Elana are expected to see their personal stocks go up handsomely later this year when the company’s multimillion-dollar investment in robotics goes live, which explains their recent trade-up in real estate.

The couple have been Roseville locals since 2010, a good four years before Traurig founded the book giant with Elana’s brothers Tony and Simon Nash and a decade before it received a welcome reception on the stock exchange late last year.

The Traurigs’ new digs are the Federation residence Highcliff in Hunters Hill, for which they forked out $9.5 million ahead of auction through McGrath’s Tracey Dixon.

The bullish purchase price was $1.5 million more than Dixon’s $8 million guide on behalf of celebrity agent Sean Anderson and the founder of online store Alex & Ferry, Shelley Anderson.

High-cost home for low-cost airline boss

With international travel at a minimum Palm Beach’s house price stocks have soared, as Jetstar chief executive Gareth Evans and his wife Natasha have found out when they settled on a holiday home this week.

Records show the boss of the low-cost airline has forked out $7.5 million for the home of State Super chairman Nicholas Johnson and his wife Charmian after it was sold by Ray White’s Noel Nicholson, making them next door neighbours to the likes of Leighton’s Wal King and pokie scion Geoff Ainsworth. The Johnsons bought it in 2002 for $2.65 million.

It’ll make corporate catch-ups with the boss that bit easier given Jetstar is a subsidiary of Qantas, and Qantas boss Alan Joyce has his own Palm Beach getaway, bought in 2015 for $5.25 million.

Bayview’s tech boom

Data and software chief Tony Nicol and his wife Alison have smashed the Bayview suburb record when they settled on their recent $16 million purchase on the waterfront.

The purchase comes just days after gold mining businessman “John” Changjin Li settled on the protracted settlement of his $11.5 million house purchase of last year, which in turn topped the suburb high by just $100,000.

The hilltop residence purchased by Mr Li in a company name was previously owned by former construction company boss Malcolm Bergmann before it was sold by Luschwitz’s John Luschwitz.

The sales show Bayview’s high-end values have done well in the past 12 months, with three of the six suburb house sales of more than $10 million all recorded in the past year.

Nicol’s purchase comes just months after the data analytics consultancy firm he founded Servian was acquired by US IT services provider Cognizant for an undisclosed sum.

The waterfront residence was designed by architect Michael Suttor and sits on almost 2000 square metres of beachfront with a private jetty and boathouse.

It was being marketed by John Luschwitz before it sold.

Racing identity finishes in the money

Horse-racing identity Nick Vass has sold his Bellevue Hill home on the quiet for about $15 million.

D’Leanne Lewis, of Laing + Simmons Double Bay, declined to confirm the widely rumoured sale result, or the suggestions it was bought by Squareknot venture capitalist Michael Seder and his wife Kim, who sold their nearby Bellevue Hill home last October for $12.8 million.

Vass has owned the almost 1200-square-metre property since paying $530,000 for it in 2006.

Columbus exec discovers Centennial Park

The co-founder and operating chief of Aussie non-bank lender Columbus Captial, Ilias Pavlopoulos, and his partner Joanne Bonomo have bought a Centennial Park investment property for $10.5 million from Nigel Russell and Thuy Nguyen, founders of the Australian International School in Vietnam.

The three-level house has been rebuilt to a design by Weir Phillips architects since it last traded in 2017 for $4.475 million when sold by travel publisher John Pond.

Records show it was listed with Sotheby’s Michael Pallier with a $9 million guide before it sold, and maintains an executive lease of $5300 a week.