Audio king Peter Freedman stakes claim to Potts Point's $16 million penthouse high

Potts Point’s suburb high has been reset at $16 million, but it isn’t the penthouse in the Villard that hit the market a week ago that has topped billionaire Bob Ell’s $15 million sale high of 2012.

Take a bow TV production company boss and former Macquarie banker John Caldon, who is rumoured to have sold his Ikon penthouse to Peter Freedman, owner of world-leading audio powerhouse and Sydney Festival sponsor RODE Microphones.

It’s a jaw-dropping result for Caldon, who bought the 18th-floor apartment in 2005 for $5.25 million from photographer Anne Geddes and her husband Kel.

Caldon and his television producer partner Lyndey Milan had completely gutted and refurbished what is the largest penthouse in the building since they bought it.

Freedman has a long history with the Ikon, predating his $5 million purchase of an apartment on level 12 last year. What wsa formerly the Chevron Hotel was home to the Silver Space nightclub in the late 1960s where Freedman’s dad Henry did the sound for live acts like Tom Jones.

Half a century later Freedman jnr is starring as a judge on Ten’s Australia By Design show and his $16 million purchase has almost doubled the $8.32 million paid by printing magnate Michael Hannan for another of the building’s penthouses a year ago.

Rumour has it the buyer and seller were brought together by Richardson & Wrench Elizabeth Bay’s Jason Boon, who is now shopping around the Ercole Palazetti-designed penthouse in the Villard owned by digital media boss Matthew Kapp.

Kapp’s whole-floor spread with private rooftop swimming pool and panoramic views to the east and west last traded in 2000 for $4.69 million, when sold by Tim Higgins, of the Design Establishment furniture company.

Kapp, the chief and co-founder of Ozmota Ventures, now calls Freshwater home, having sold his Mosman waterfront apartment in 2015 for $8.4 million to coffee queen Clelia Cantarella.

Will practice make perfect?

Could car dealer Scott Sutton and his wife Nadia finally have settled on their forever home? It would certainly end what looks to have been a Goldilocks approach to high-end real estate in recent years by the son of Neil Sutton.

There was the vacant block of land in Bellevue Hill bought from property developer Denis O’Neil in 2014 for $4.2 million, which was all set to become an Xpace Design residence but was instead sold last year for $6 million to its neighbour, hedge fund trader Russell Aboud and his wife Lucinda.

Then there was the modernist house up the hill, also in Bellevue Hill, bought for $5.3 million in 2015. But that wasn’t quite right either, and Sutton sold it last year for $7.31 million to real estate honcho Brian White.

And, now the Suttons have settled on a $3.38 million Californian bungalow in Vaucluse redesigned by architect David Haertsch, through Alexander Phillips, of Phillips Pantzer Donnelley, that looks just right.

Game on in Paddington

Edward Fong, the man who helped launch the Assassin’s Creed and Grand Theft Auto computer games on the Australian market, is offering his newly rebuilt Paddington terrace to buyers with a guide of $6.5 million to $7 million.

The boss of video game company Ubisoft bought the Victorian house in 2016 for $3.5 million and has redesigned it throughout, retaining only the heritage facade and the two front rooms.

The ultra-contemporary transformation goes to auction on December 11 through Di Baker, of Di Baker Prestige Properties.

Fong has proven quite the property flipper in recent years. Having bought a worker’s cottage nearby in 2014 for $1.43 million, he and his wife Stephanie undertook a large-scale renovation and sold it two years later for $3.1 million, again through Di Baker.

Waste not want not in Birchgrove

Carolyn Johnston, a co-owner of rubbish collection giant United Resource Management, has bought a $5.75 million house in the Birchgrove.

It was a strong offer for the contemporary residence designed by MCK Architects, well above the $5 million guide offered by BresicWhitney’s Adrian Oddi.

But Johnston’s purchase has all the appearance of leaving the historic Hunters Hill trophy estate she owns with URM boss Anthony Johnston redundant.

The 1879-built Georgian mansion with tennis court and swimming pool set on a vast 4600 square metres was bought by the Johnstons in 2000 for $4.5 million, and would have to rank among Hunters Hill’s best properties, particularly since the house next door was added to the holding in 2006 for $2.55 million.

One to watch for in the new year, perhaps?

Hotelier goes large in Kangaroo Point

The owner of the Westend Hotel in the CBD, Chris Donohue, and his wife Ana-Maria have emerged as the recent $10.86 million buyers of the Kangaroo Point trophy home that set a Sutherland Shire and St George record.

The Donohues’ record-setting buy was built over two blocks of deep waterfront three years ago by Celeste and Joseph Steiger, who runs electric and mechanical servicing company Industrial Electric.

And the Donohues have wasted little time in their upgrade plans, listing their designer waterfront residence in Sylvania Waters for $3.4 million to $3.6 million with the same agents who they bought through, Dave Watkins and John Basa of DJW Property.

A flip of the manor for the Cristavaos

Property developer Duarte Cristovao and his wife, Mrs Australia 2012 Veronica Cristovao, have returned the English manor-style house they bought in Darling Point a year ago to the market.

It is a different looking house from the one they bought for $5 million from radiologist David Ho and Fei Lin Loke. Gone is the red brick of its 1915 origins, and introduced are black timber floors and high-end finishes.

The couple are returning to the inner west, hopefully in time for Veronica to make her debut on a mystery reality television show.

Barbora Marcinkova, of Black Diamondz Property Concierge, won’t disclose the name of the show in the works, but does offer a $6.18 million guide ahead of the property’s December 8 auction.