Jewellery designer Sybella Morris snaps up Whale Beach pad for $10m+

Jewellery designer Sybella Morris has joined the stampede of Sydney’s well-heeled heading to the farthest reaches of the northern beaches, buying the Alex Popov-designed residence The Hutt at Whale Beach for about $10.5 million.

David Edwards, of LJ Hooker Palm Beach, was keeping schtum on the exact sale figure, but had a $10.5 million guide at the end of its two-year sales campaign and sources say that was close to the result.

Morris is no stranger to quality real estate. She and her billionaire fund manager brother Hamish Douglass grew up at the family’s grand Woollahra estate, held by the family since 1967 when their late father, arts patron and racehorse owner Gordon Douglass, bought it for $74,000.

Douglass is the chairman of global equities manager Magellan Financial Group and recently usurped Kerr Neilson as the wealthiest fund manager in Australia, closely followed by his Magellan co-founder Chris Mackay, according to researchers for the Financial Review rich list.

That should make Christmas get-togethers at the Morris holiday home fun, given Mackay recently completed a major rebuild of his Whale Beach weekender just a few doors from Morris.

Boom times in Bronte

There must be gold buried under Bronte. No sooner did green energy entrepreneur Carl Prins and his wife Kate set a suburb high of $17.9 million than healthcare tycoon Dan Collins and his wife Cassandra are hoping to beat that with the sale of their nearby trophy home.

Collins is chief executive and co-founder of $5 billion cancer care specialist GenesisCare, the largest cancer services provider in Australia that are currently expanding into the US thanks to a recent $1.6 billion buyout of the largest independent radiotherapy provider in the US, 21st Century Oncology.

It also explains the Collins family’s move to the US just four years after they bought the contemporary Bronte residence for $14.5 million from Nadia Jacob and Peter Scutt, founder of online home care platform Mable.

The three-level residence is set for auction on September 12 through PPD’s Alexander Phillips.

Savill adds to his collection

Prominent art dealer Denis Savill had no sooner snapped up 25 pieces at this week’s art auction of the estate of collector John Schaeffer than he turned his acquisitional attentions to property, buying a four-bedroom apartment in Bellevue Hill for about $5 million.

Savill is already a Bellevue Hill local, having bought his house on nearby Foster Avenue for $6.6 million in 2015 and before agents hatch plans to list it, he says he has no plans to sell anytime soon.

Savill’s newly purchased pad was purchased as a structured deal on a long settlement after a sales campaign by Pillinger’s Brad Pillinger, and came just 10 days after he also bought a north-facing apartment at Port Douglas, sight unseen, for $420,000.

The doyen of art dealing has been busy of late, most notably buying the Ray Crooke painting Girl with Lei from the estate of Lady Mary Fairfax last year for $24,400 and more recently snapping up 25 pieces from the estate of Schaeffer.

He says he also outbid billionaire hedge fund manager Sir Michael Hintze to buy a masterpiece by artist George Washington Lambert under the hammer last December for about £80,000.

Backing a winner in Waverley

Longtime tax counsel to billionaire hedge fund tycoon George Soros Gavin Murphy and his partner, Catherine Donovan, have made a decent return to the Sydney property market, buying a $5.3 million house in Waverley.

Despite being based in New York, the couple maintain strong links to as part-owners of renowned Hunter Valley thoroughbred stud Amarina Farm and majority backers of leading stud Newgate Farm.

The house was previously owned by senior Coca Cola Amatil executive Kate Mason, who bought it in 2008 for $4 million, and listed it in March with The Agency’s Bethwyn Richards.

Richards declined to comment on whether the purchase marks a permanent return for the couple, or is merely a Sydney base – set near Randwick Racecourse – for their returns from New York.

Mosman house makes selling look like child’s play

Childcare mogul Brendan McAssey only listed his Alex Popov-designed residence on Balmoral slopes a week ago for $20 million to 22 million and before this weekend’s open it has sold.

Belle Property Mosman’s Tim Foote would not reveal the sale price, but did confirm it was not bought by its igh-profile tenants of two years ago Victoria and David Beckham.

McAssey bought it in 2016 for $17.35 million from Donna Doyle, the former wife of mining executive Alan Doyle, amid plans to amalgamate it with his home next door, bought for $11.25 million in 2013.

The sale result is Mosman’s highest in the post-COVID-19 lockdowns market.

From Rose Bay trophy to Cottage Point gem

Sylvia Myers, wife of high net wealth adviser Lawrence Myers, has bought a five-bedroom weekender on deepwaterfrontage with a private jetty at Cottage Point for $4.25 million.

Myers, the founding partner of MBP Partners and a board member of VGI Partners, is based in Rose Bay where the couple are best known as the buyers of billionaire Bret Blundy’s trophy home in 2018.

No purchase price on the Rose Bay was ever disclosed at settlement, but it ended a more than two-year sales campaign that maintained a $45 million asking price.

Historic Greenwich Park sells at a loss

The historic Southern highlands property Greenwich Park has sold for $8 million to fund manager Ben Fife and his wife Rachel, of property investment group Fife Capital.

The sale is a loss for Shanghai-based property developer Peiqing Wu, who bought the 1200 hectare property near Sutton Forest in 2011 for $8.2 million.