Jessica Rowe and Peter Overton upgrade from Vaucluse house for $7 million-plus

High-profile journalists Peter Overton and Jessica Rowe are upgrading their real estate, listing their Vaucluse house for $7 million-plus to trade up to a larger, five-bedroom family home in the same suburb.

“It’s time for a change for that next stage of our family life,” said Overton, the chief newsreader for Sydney’s 6pm edition of Nine News (Nine is the majority owner of Domain). “We’ve been looking to buy for a couple of years.”

The couple bought their two-storey home with four bedrooms, formal and informal living areas and a swimming pool on almost 700 square metres of land 12 years ago for $3.37 million, and undertook a major renovation a few years later with what Overton describes as “episodic renovations” since.

“We’ve loved living here for the past 12 years where our girls [Allegra, 14, and Giselle, 12] have grown up,” Rowe said.

When they bought the house the pair were upgrading from their matrimonial home in Rose Bay, bought in 2003 for $2.315 million when Overton was at 60 Minutes and Rowe was presenting Ten News at Five with Ron Wilson.

James Keenan and Elliott Placks, of Ray White Double Bay, who have bought and sold on behalf of the couple for years, are set to launch the sales campaign in the coming days.

Tartak sets Strathfield record

The Rich-List Tartak family, headed by waste collection giant Bingo Industries founder Tony Tartak, are big fans of Strathfield’s grand mansions, judging by the slew in family ownership. So what’s one more?

Robyn Tartak’s latest purchase has set a suburb high of $9.05 million for a six-bedroom mansion – with an eight-car garage, tennis court, billiard room, art studio and indoor water-polo pool – that was recently sold by retired lawyer and Water Polo Australia board member Greg Turner and his wife Deborah.

The sale tops the $8.8 million high set in 2017 when Sanity music stores’ Ray Itaoui sold to move to his $47.8 million Vaucluse digs. It frees the Turners to downsize to Northwood on the lower north shore, where they have bought designer digs for $9.25 million.

There is no sign yet what Tartak plans to do with her other Strathfield mansion – also with a tennis court and pool but no water polo facilities – bought in 2018 for $7.25 million from Patricia Barrett, widow of late bookmaker Harry Barrett.

Wattai great Byron purchase

Bondi Beach-based philanthropist Tanya Nelson Carnegie has become one of Byron Bay’s more avid house shoppers, paying $14 million for a house at Wategos Beach.

The hillside house, Wattai, was designed by architect Peter Maddison, of Grand Designs Australia fame, and has more than doubled in value since it last traded in 2016 for $5.6 million, sold by former 1970s AFL player Allan Sinclair.

It was listed by Liam Annesley and settlement revealed Carnegie’s purchase, which came less than a year after she set a record for the North Coast hinterland when she bought the Bangalow property Hillstone Farm for $11 million.

The art of the sale

Double Bay’s resident Young Rich List-er Greg Moshal and his wife Simone have upgraded to a Double Bay Federation house for a little more than $7.3 million.

This is the 1910-built residence that was long owned by renowned artist Tim Storrier and his wife Janet until they sold it in 2013 for $3.95 million, also trading in their Bathurst property Blackdown at the same time, to move to Bowral’s historic Hopewood House.

The Double Bay home was listed with Sotheby’s Harriet France by Harvey Carter, of Point King Capital investment firm, and his wife Sophie. They secured $415,000 more than the reserve when it sold under the hammer.

Moshal, the chief and co-founder of online lender Prospa, has since sold their apartment in a nearby triplex for $4.2 million to Point Piper-based property developer Stephen Bauer and his wife Miriam, completing the Bauers’ purchase of the whole block for $12.75 million.

Compound interest

Craig Ueland, the former chief and president of global investment advisory Russell Investments, and his wife Kylie, a former TV news reporter for Seattle’s King 5 News, have listed their Hunters Hill family compound – set between the historic Bulwarra mansion previously owned by Cate Blanchett and the Windermere estate of Chinese billionaire Sam Guo – ahead of a September 23 auction for a total of $15 million.

The couple relocated here from Seattle in 2010, paying $6.2 million at the time for the recently completed residence on waterfront reserve designed by architect Corrine Girard Young, and adding the house next door in 2015 for $3.9 million.

McGrath’s Tracey Dixon is offering the residences separately with guides of $9.5 million and $5.5 million, respectively.