$9m Breaks The Drought On The Hill
Sydney Morning Herald
Saturday August 4, 2001
After a five-year dry spell, Hunters Hill waterfront properties are back in the money.
Contracts have been issued for a record $9 million sale of the waterfront, Garden Reach, ranked among the North Shore's most expensive residences over the past two decades.
The 3,200-square-metre Viret Street property has a tennis court, two pools, two wharves, a floating pontoon and a cabana.
The five-bedroom house was last sold in 1993, for $8.2 million, inclusive of furniture and a turbo-engined yacht. The Garden Reach estate, sans yacht, was initially listed two years ago by a Chinese-born shoe manufacturer, Ho Cheng, and his wife, So Cheng, who subdivided it, creating an adjoining 1,200-square-metre vacant block.
The estate stems back to 1879, when 32 marine villa sites were listed for auction.
The existing 84-square house, which occupies much of Newcombe Point on the Lane Cove River, was developed by property developer George Parlby who secured mid-1980s Land and Environment Court permission to extensively rebuild the Edwardian house. The property was among the earliest in Sydney to fetch more than $1 million after the Elizabeth Bay waterfront Boomerang broke through the barrier in 1978.
The theatrical entrepreneur Michael Edgley paid $1.25 million in 1980 for Garden Reach, matching the earlier $1.25 million sale of Boomerang.
Its sale brings to an end a dormant period on the Hunters Hill peninsula. The last big sale was in 1996, when the historic Joubert-built riverfront estate the Haven fetched $7.25 million. Elsewhere in Sydney there has been intense activity in the top end of the market in the past 18 months, with 25 properties selling for more than $7.5 million.
© 2001 Sydney Morning Herald
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