Tyree family sell Burradoo farm Sutherland Park for almost $50 million

The Southern Highlands rural market has reached the sort of dizzy price heights that will shock even the most dogged Sydney home hunters, thanks to an off-market sale of the Burradoo property, Sutherland Park, for close to $50 million.

Records indicate the property – long held by the family of the late Sir William and Lady Tyree – was snapped up by eastern suburbs-based businessman Victor Comino.

The exact sale price of the 109 hectares remains unknown, but sources say it was set to be rezoned for potential subdivision before it was to be offered for $50 million by Raine & Horne’s Matthew Anstee and it sold before any rezoning took place.

Anstee declined to comment on the deal, but locals expect the country homestead, complete with tennis court and an airstrip, to be a rural home for Comino in the near future, leaving the potential for rezoning down the track.

Sir William Tyree, known as the transformer tycoon thanks to his founding of the largest high voltage electrical transformer company in the Southern Hemisphere, purchased the first of the four lots that made up the Burradoo property in 1972 for $504,000 from the Cranfield grazier family.

He died in 2013, just weeks after his Darling Point waterfront trophy home was sold for $32 million, and the Burradoo property was sold by his children Dr Peter Tyree and Robyn Fennell.

Rich-listers selling heritage home

Rich list brothers David and Aidan Tudehope, founders of telco-turned-technology company Macquarie Telecom, are selling their family home, the historic Edgecliff residence Fenton, for more than $17 million.

Noted architect Robin Dods built this National Trust-classified house in 1918 as his home, and after he died two years later was passed to his son, the acclaimed medico Sir Lorimer Dods, who remained in residence for many decades afterwards.

In the 1980s, it was renowned as the home of merchant banker Brian Yuill before he went to jail, and the house sold in 1995 for $1.65 million to the late philanthropist Maureen Tudehope. The north-facing residence with five bedrooms and separate guest quarters is at the end of a private 35-metre driveway on 1400 square metres.

Michael Pallier of Sotheby’s has the listing.

Model investment pays off

Long-time Point Piper locals are set to farewell one of their most enduring neighbours of the past half-century after former Playboy model Evelin Hegyesi quietly sold her Lady Martins Beach apartment for $6.495 million.

The German-born former bikini model has been a resident in Australia’s most exclusive suburb since 1971 when aged just 24 and pregnant with the love child of then Philippine president Ferdinand Marcos she took possession of a six-bedroom mansion on Wyuna Road.

Hegyesi’s involvement with the late dictator may have remained among Point Piper best-kept secrets, but in 2004 Swiss authorities lifted the country’s strict bank secrecy laws, allowing investigators to access the secret bank records of Marcos.

Hegyesi, now 74, sold that six-bedroom mansion in 1999 for $6.2 million but remained a local, downsizing to a beachfront apartment for $1.48 million in an art deco block of six that was later also home to the former member for Wentworth Peter King and former Australian Women’s Weekly editor-in-chief Deborah Thomas.

Hegyesi’s off-market sale comes three months after Thomas sold her apartment for $4.73 million to high-end finishes wholesaler Martin Placek.

Bronte record – Moore or less

The Bronte home of Colinton Capital Partners head Simon Moore has sold ahead of next week’s planned auction, prompting speculation locally it had topped the suburb’s $17.9 million high set by green energy entrepreneur Carl Prins last year.

The Agency’s Ben Collier declined to reveal the sale price but was asking $18 million for the 485-square-metre digs by the beach. To think it last traded for $8.05 million five years ago, but that was before ageing local hunk Simon Baker and Rebecca Rigg shocked the neighbourhood when they scored $17 million for their former home up the hill.

Moore and his partner Lucinda Cowdroy are heading to Vaucluse, where they bought the $35 million mansion of Hong Kong arts patron Yang Yang.

Annandale artistic legacy

The grand Victorian Italianate residence long owned by the late artist Georgina Beier – regarded as the “founding mother” of contemporary art in Papua New Guinea – is up for grabs for $8.5 million.

Records show the seven-bedroom mansion on a vast 1100 square metres fronting Johnston Street was for most of last century owned by a run of medicos from 1930 until 1978 when Dr Munro Scott Alexander sold it for $110,000 to Beier and her late husband, editor, writer and scholar Ulli Beier.

Knight Frank’s Adam Ross has the exclusive listing.

It returns to the market amid one of the strongest markets Annandale has seen. The suburb high was set at $8.7 million in May, but is expected to be topped by the nearby historic residence The Abbey, which Carnival Australia’s former chairwoman Ann Sherry and her husband Michael Hogan recently listed for $15 million.

That isn’t the only real estate Sherry and Hogan are off-loading amid talk they are moving to Brisbane. This week the couple also listed their Southern Highlands getaway Mugga Ridge.

Mugga Ridge is a 242-hectare property with an off-grid house with spectacular views from the mountaintop, an olive grove and William Dangar-designed gardens.

It was sold by the Hughes family in 2002 for $375,000 and returns to the market through LJ Hooker Bowral’s Sophie Desprez for $3.75 million to $4.125 million.

Cottage Point record deal

The soaring share price of online furniture retailer Temple & Webster isn’t hurting co-founder Mark Coulter’s home ownership plans. The Potts Point-based chief executive has emerged as the buyer of a Church Point getaway that set a local record recently at $6.8 million.

The six-bedroom waterfront residence with a swimming pool, cinema room, gymnasium and sauna was a good deal for transport industry veteran Graham Harris, who purchased it five years ago for $4.5 million, and listed it with Sotheby’s Harriet France and Deborah Travers before it sold.

The pandemic and subsequent lockdowns have seen the Temple & Webster’s share price soar in the past 18 months, from 97 cents to $12.4 this week. During that time Coulter has added to his $4 million apartment in Potts Point’s Rex building, snapping up the $1.4 million pad next door.