This article is from the Australian Property Journal archive
AUSTRALIA’S house price record is set to be smashed, with Aussie Home Loans founder John Symond listing his Point Piper waterfront mansion with expectations of more than $200 million.
Symond and his wife Amber spent eight years building the Alex Tzannes-designed Wingadal, which rises four levels from a 2,676 sqm Wolseley Road site – equal to four blocks – with 98 metres of harbour frontage and front row views of the Sydney Opera House and the Harbour Bridge.
Wingadal has four bedrooms plus a two-bedroom apartment, entertaining areas for 500 people, 22-seat theatre, extensive wine cellar, two commercial kitchens, undercover parking for 20 cars, and a pool.
“Wingadal has been a special home for my family over the past two decades, and now I’m looking forward to spending more time travelling overseas,” Symond said in a statement.
The Symonds purchased the site in 1999 and put the completed property to the market in 2017, knocking back an offer of $110 million and withdrawing the listing after they decided to spend more time in Australia.
A sale of the expected magnitude would easily make Wingadal Australia’s most expensive home. The current titleholder is the amalgamation of the top three floors of Lendlease’s One Sydney Harbour development at Barangaroo South in Sydney, which a local buyer spent $140 million creating in 2019.
The off-the-plan sale comprised the two-storey penthouse at the top of the 76-storey tower and sub-penthouse below it. Residents began taking the keys in March.
Next on Australia’s biggest-ever home sales is the $130 million paid by Atlassian co-founder, billionaire Scott Farquhar for Point Piper’s Uig Lodge at the end of 2022. That deal broke the record price for detached house fellow Atlassian co-founder Mike Cannon-Brookes had set in 2018 with the $100 million acquisition of the Fairwater Estate, also in Point Piper, from the estate of Lady Mary Fairfax.
In turn, that gazumped the record Farquhar had set a year earlier, with the $71 million purchase of the Elaine estate next door to Fairwater – also from the Fairfax family.
Knight Frank’s latest Prime International Residential Index showed Sydney recording 2.7% growth in luxury residential property prices in 2023.
The listing of Wingadal comes two months after another Wolseley Road mansion, Rockleigh, was listed for sale with expectations of $100 million.
