Macquarie's Brett Robson strikes an $11 million deal

Macquarie’s head real estate banker Brett Robson and his wife, Belinda, have taken possession of their almost $11 million ocean-front reserve home in Bondi.

The neo-Spanish fronted house last traded in 1979, for $40,000. It was redesigned by architect Graham Humphrey about five years ago into a glamorous three-storey home set above the Bondi to Bronte walk.

Formerly the Sydney base of Jan Gowrie-Smith, the former wife of expat entrepreneur Ian Gowrie-Smith, it was sold by The Blacket Agency’s Peter Blacket in June, prompting the Robsons to sell their North Bondi home on Hastings Parade last month for $5,353,000.

Cash Cascade

Financier Andrew Ipkendanz has sold his Paddington home in no time, pocketing about $4 million and setting a street record for a single house in the process.

Redesigned by his brother-in-law architect Jake Dowse in 2002, the Cascade Street property was listed on and off the market for a year or so from 2011, and relisted last month with local word Ipkendanz was never going to take less than his $4 million asking price. It last traded in 1987, for $600,000.

That just leaves his Peter Stutchbury-designed mega mansion in Vaucluse, which is also in the hands of agent Alison Coopes, of Agency by Alison Coopes.

Ipkendanz has drawn a line in the sand at $52 million for the never-lived-in trophy, rejecting two offers at close to $50 million in recent months.

Off-market high

The end of the property boom may be nigh, but there’s still no end to the off-market prestige deals. Most recent, is the $7.4 million sale in Bellevue Hill of the home of radiologist James Black and his wife, property developer and interior design whizz Juliet Black. 

It’s not a bad result given they only bought the 1930s-era residence, Arjuna, less than 18 months ago for bang on $5 million from ANZ Bank chairman Warwick Smith and his wife, Kathryn.

At least they undertook a lavish renovation in the interim, but nothing so major that DA approval was required.

A local source pins the sale on Ray White Double Bay’s Gavin Rubinstein​, who sold their former Bellevue Hill home, on Bulkara Road, in March last year for $6.32 million, well up on the $3.6 million they’d paid two years earlier.

Rubinstein was coy on details, but the paper trail reveals the buyer as 8Hotels founder and chief Paul Fischmann and his partner, 8Hotels art director Claire Sarfati.

And the Blacks are not going far. Another source says they were Gavin Rubinstein’s buyers, at some $5 million, of the Ginahgulla Road home of Allan Campbell, the former chief executive of mining contractor AJ Lucas.

Swapping Pymble for trees

Former Best & Less chief Holly Kramer and her husband, retired Canterbury Bulldogs boss Malcolm Noad​ are selling their Pymble home to move to the Southern Highlands. 

The tree-change comes just days after Kramer took up her place on the board of AMP.

The couple bought the almost 1500 square metres (next door to the Carinya estate) in 2010 for $3.1 million, having sold their nearby Woodlands Avenue home for bang on $2 million.

Scott Chadwick, of Chadwick’s, is asking about $4 million for the Telegraph Road property.

Zen appeal

Restaurateur and caterer Charles Wilkins is selling his modernist-meets-Zen-style Woollahra home only two years after he bought it from philanthropic former newspaper director James Fairfax.

In June 2013, Wilkins paid $2.8 million for the George Freedman-designed house, and sold his Elizabeth Bay waterfront pad for $4.23 million to fashion designer Melanie Greensmith and rocker Mark McEntee.

Given property interests in Bali and his Bowral property with the impressive landscaped garden he bought two years ago for $1.5 million, Wilkins isn’t spending much time in his Woollahra digs.

The Edward Street property goes to auction on November 14, for more than $3.25 million, through Alexander Phillips, of Phillips Pantzer Donnelley.

Palmie’s striking deal

The Palm Beach waterfront of retired ad executive Peter Hamilton and his wife, Christine, is up for about $4.8 million. The word is the couple are joining the throng of Sydneysiders bound for the Southern Highlands. 

This is the glass and steel contemporary housethey built in 2001, having purchased it in 1991 for $385,000.

The Observation Point residence was on offer in 2010, with $6 million hopes, but is now up with more serious selling aspirations through Peter Blacket.

On nearby Ralston Road, sports production executive Richard Scotts and his wife, Lucy (daughter of Rosie and Paul Nankervis), are selling their five-bedroom house on almost 1000 square metres.

Having paid $2.6 million for it in 2009, they are now asking more than $2.5 million through LJ Hooker Palm Beach’s David Edwards. 

Records show the couple paid $2.1 million in 2009 to buy the almost 2000 square metre property a few doors away, for which they have lodged plans to subdivide and rebuild.

Literary masterpiece

The beautifully renovated Darlinghurst terrace of human rights lawyer and author Jacquie Ashton and her husband, Tim Ashton, of the polo playing family, goes to auction on November 14.

The Victorian terrace is set on a corner with windows overlooking adjoining Arthur Park and a grand limestone double-door entry foyer, both of which were hard fought-for approvals of a few years ago.

It last traded in 2003 for $645,000, five years before Jacquie’s book, The Bitter Shore, was published. The beautifully finished residence is up for more than $2.5 million through McGrath’s Ann Ramsay Arkins.

Wollstonecraft record deal

Stockbroking veteran Rod Clarkson and his wife, Penelope, sold their Walmer House late on Tuesday, setting a Wollstonecraft record at more than $7 million.

Excited neighbours were already abuzz with talk the pre-auction sale was for $1 million more than the $6.2 million high of 2012, paid by Goldman Sachs’ David Acton and his wife, Brooke, two doors away. Settlement will reveal the exact figure, which McGrath’s Annika Bongiorno won’t reveal.

A Spotless price

The Greenwich property of recently appointed Spotless chief Martin Sheppard and his wife, Donna, sold under the hammer last weekend for $4,255,000.

Formerly a senior partner at KPMG, the couple are now based in Melbourne, no doubt prompting the sale of their redundant Sydney digs. McGrath’s Brent Courtney matched that sale price under the same hammer for the Longueville home of Amanda Roche, wife of SNP Security boss Thomas Roche, to expats returning from New York.