Clive Palmer’s daughter buys $15.5m inner Sydney house in cash

Emily Palmer, daughter and heiress of billionaire businessman and former politician Clive Palmer, has expanded her property empire by adding a $15.5 million Paddington house to her sprawling multimillion-dollar portfolio that spans Queensland and NSW.

The 31-year-old purchased the Weir Phillips-designed, Alvaro Bros-built house in cash with no mortgage recorded on the title.

It’s not the only residence she owns in the suburb, having bought into the blue-chip postcode for a $4.25 million terrace in 2022, also without a mortgage, as her first foray into Sydney’s property market.

Who would have thought that the daughter of Trumpet of Patriots chairman would have a penchant for the cosmopolitan lifestyle of the independent cum teal leaning seat (Alex Greenwich and Allegra Spender hold the electorates at a state and federal level, respectively) of the eastern suburbs?

She is also the director of several businesses owned by her father, including Clive’s mining company Mineralogy International Limited.

She may be in better company in her father’s political heartland of Queensland, where she owns at least half a dozen properties, many of them rented, with the jewel in the crown her Paradise Point waterfront that was gifted to her by her dad, according to title documents. That’s the Australian way.

The Paddington home sold through Ben Collier of The Agency who could not be contacted for comment.

Premium for prestige property in Rose Bay

While the debate on rezoning the eastern suburbs to pave way for more affordable housing rages on among the well heeled, one of the largest landholdings in the area, The Knoll in Rose Bay, has fetched the princely sum of $45.1 million under the hammer this week thanks to a local family who pushed the price some $15 million above the starting bid.

The circa-1935 Georgian revival home, which was on offer for the first time in more than six decades, takes the title of the highest price paid at auction for a home in Australia.

The 2536-square-metre blue-chip block was tipped to be a test of whether the prestige market would be willing to pay a premium for prized real estate in an area that has been earmarked for higher density in what is perhaps the epitome of the housing problem at hand in Sydney.

While the six-bedroom, four-bathroom house falls under the NSW government’s low- and mid-rise housing reforms announced this year, there was only an outside chance that developers would be interested in the site.

That was proven when close to half a dozen families turned up to the private auction of the six-bedroom, four-bathroom house to take part in the sell-off, which started off at $29 million and went up in $2 million increments to begin with among four active bidders.

The property, which had vistas of the Royal Sydney Golf Course, was owned by descendants of Sir James Burns, one of Australia’s most successful merchants, who purchased it in 1962 for £32,000. It has remained in the family since.

It sold through Michael Dunn and James Dunn of Richardson & Wrench.

“Very rarely does a property of this calibre and land size come to market and the buyers have recognised that. Agents can provide an opinion but at the end of the day, it’s the buyers who determine the value of the property,” Michael told this masthead.

Carmel’s conga line of owners

Meanwhile, another landmark trophy home Carmel in Edgecliff has sold for circa $30 million, sources close to the deal say.

But this sprawling 1300 sq m estate has had a revolving door of owners, the latest one to be revealed upon settlement after sellers renowned biotech entrepreneur Paul Hopper and his wife, Deborah, decided to downsize from the four-bathroom Mediterranean-style property.

Designed by renowned architect F. Glynn Gilling in 1935 for prominent stockbroker Stanley Utz, the home has a rich pedigree of owners. It was later owned by newspaper men Rupert “Rags” Henderson and Ezra Norton before Rupert Murdoch purchased it in 1968 for $200,000, soon after he married his second of five wives, Anna Torv.

Murdoch offloaded it two years later for $225,000 to the Bishop family, and by the late 1980s, it was owned by Warren Kitson, a director of then Hong Kong bank Wardley.

Its last owners, the Hoppers, purchased it for $23 million just three years ago from medical device entrepreneur Dr Charalambos Revelas and his wife, Mary.

Hopper’s latest biotech venture, Radiopharm Theranostics, was launched on the ASX in 2021, having attracted the investment dollars of the likes of billionaire Alex Waislitz, cattleman Jack Mann, Collette Dinnigan and Shark Tank’s Andrew Banks.

It sold through Gavin Rubinstein of TRG, who declined to comment.