Oatley family set to list Mosman's Harry Seidler-designed Igloo House for $20m

The billionaire Oatley family are renowned among Mosman trophy home hunters for owning some of Mosman’s best real estate, from Ros Oatley’s vast waterfront pile on Wyargine Point and brother Ian Oatley’s Federation residence Easterly on the hilltop above Spit Bridge.

But in coming days Belle Property’s Tim Foote says Ian is set to list his landmark modernist residence known as the Igloo House  that was designed by Harry Seidler.

The revolutionary house is formally called Williamson House after lawyer George Williamson, who commissioned it in 1951, and despite being the first home in Australia to use flat-slab construction, it was earmarked for demolition 20 years ago until Labor’s then planning minister Andrew Refshauge stepped in to save it.

A few months later, the son of the late wine baron Bob Oatley purchased the then heritage-listed waterfront house with its distinctive twin arched garages for $4.2 million, and a month later, he added the waterfront block next door for $3.5 million.

A few years later Mosman Council approved a DA based on Seidler’s design work to restore and extend the house to include an entertainment wing, which was among his last commissions before he died in 2006.

Mr Foote said work on the DA was started but not completed, enabling the Seidler legacy to be finished by another owner 15 years after the acclaimed architect died.

An official price guide is yet to be formalised, but expect to pay about $20 million for the double waterfront property north of Chinamans Beach, which was the listing price back in 2011 when it was briefly for sale.

The Oatleys are renowned for buying the house next door. Oatley’s sister Ros also bought on the Mosman waterfront in 2001, paying $15.5 million, and adding the half-built house next door a decade later for $19 million for more garden space.

Southern Highlands expansion

Still with the rich listers, fund manager Will Vicars and his mother Carrie Howard, sister-in-law to former PM John Howard, have added to their Southern Highlands holding, paying $5.5 million for Comerton Park.

The 45-hectare Glenquarry property with 1890s weatherboard cottage is next door to the Walling and Wallingwood estate they bought for $6.175 million in 2004 and the $6 million Bowral farm added in 2006.

The family’s latest acquisition through WM Carpenter’s John Renouf on behalf of the Gonzalez family takes their local landholding to 240 hectares at a cost of $17.6 million.

Doubling down, to double up

Fund manager Charles Hamieh of ClearBridge Investments (previously RARE Infrastructure) and his wife Amee Patel have cashed in on their Darling Point house handsomely, more than doubling the $7.125 million they paid for it just five years ago.

At the time, it was a duplex on the high side of Yarranabbe Road and which scored DA approval two years ago to be demolished to make way for a four-level residence to a design by X.pace Design Group.

But without lifting a hammer to start work, the couple have instead opted to remain at their Annandale home and sold the Darling Point property on the quiet for what sources say is close to $16 million through Pillinger’s Brad Pillinger and Ballard’s Mark Lowe. Thanks for coming.

Hair-curling profit

BetaShares co-founder Ilan Israelstam and his partner Louise Romer look set to swap their Redfern terrace for one of Centennial Park’s grand parkside homes thanks to their recent $8.26 million purchase.

The couple’s purchase offered one of the suburb’s most extraordinary short-term capital returns on a house when it was sold in May by Jo-Ann De Lorenzo, daughter of the late haircare tycoon Vincent De Lorenzo.

De Lorenzo’s solely-owned corporate entity purchased the four-bedroom house for $6.5 million less than six months earlier for just $6.5 million just days before it was scheduled for auction, only to be resold by Raine & Horne Double bay’s Chris Helich on the quiet.

Expect to see Romer’s Redfern terrace hit the market soon.

Paradise has a price

In Greenwich, the long-held home of the late Middle Harbour Yacht Club Commodore Keith Tierney and his widow Judy is for sale for the first time in more than 30 years amid expectations of smashing the suburb’s high.

The Sydney to Hobart Yacht Race alumni built the two-storey home and swimming pool on a 1900-square-metre parcel directly behind the Greenwich Sailing Club in the early 1990s, having purchased it in 1988 for $1.565 million.

The suburb’s high has stood at just $8.525 million since 2015 thanks to the house purchase by Amanda Roche, wife of technology security services boss Thomas Roche.

Tierney had long refused to sell the house in his later years, telling approaching agents to “put a price on paradise”.

As it turns out, buyers can expect to pay upwards of $14 million for paradise through Harbourline’s Bernadette Hayes and Christie’s Darren Curtis.