This article is from the Australian Property Journal archive
AFTER nearly three years of being shopped around, a mansion in Sydney’s uber-exclusive Vaucluse has been sold for more than $62 million in one of Australia’s most expensive home sales ever.
According to the Sydney Morning Herald, corporate lawyer John Landerer and his wife Michelle found a buyer for the property, known as Ganeden, in an undisclosed party from China that had shown interest for over a year.
Ganeden’s price tag puts in Sydney’s top six house sales, while it also becomes the second most expensive non-waterfront house in Australia. That title goes to La Mer next door, a consolidation of three houses by James Packer that sold to businessman Chau Chak Wing seven years ago for $70 million.
Ganeden is likewise built on a site consisting of three houses between Wentworth and Vaucluse Road.
The Landerers paid $5.2 million in 1988 for the first of the properties, and bought the additional pair in the mid-1990s.
Now, the 2,400 sqm landholding has a mansion with seven bedrooms, 13 bathrooms, three kitchen, home cinema, internal lifts, gym, indoor and outdoor swimming pools, garaging for 20 cars, and function centre.
The home was designed by architect Stephen Gergely and interiors by the late Frank Grill, with gardens by Paul Bangay.
Atlassian co-founder Mike Cannon-Brookes and his wife Annie set the Australian all-time record in 2018 with the $100 million purchase of the Fairwater mansion, set on a 1.121-hectare Point Piper beachfront site, from the Fairfax family.
It is the largest private landholding on the Sydney Harbour and next door to the Elaine mansion that his Atlassian co-founder Scott Farqhuar bought from the Fairfax family a year earlier for over $71 million.
Also in Point Piper, John Li paid $95 million for the Edgewater mansion in 2020.
According Knight Frank, price premiums for waterfront properties grew even more during 2021 and now eclipse inland properties by 79%.
Sydney’s prime property market is tipped to record the second-highest price growth rate across the globe in 2022.
