This article is from the Australian Property Journal archive
AN East Melbourne red-brick mansion has sold for more than $22 million to the ex-wife of Stephen Ring, who was a major shareholder in Swisse Vitamins when the company was taken over in a $1.67 billion deal in 2015.
Currently home to Victoria’s Police Association, the 115-year-old mansion at 1 Clarendon Street known as St Hilda’s was marketed as one of the last available corner freehold properties with frontage to the Fitzroy Gardens.
Oliver Hay, Matt Stagg, Daniel Wolman, Leon Ma and Peter Bremner from Colliers sold the property through an expressions of interest campaign, with the vendor represented by transaction manager Guy Ayres of Relae Property.
The office building includes a two-storey rear 1982 extension, and is on 2,024 sqm of land with on-grade parking for 20 cars and flexible commercial 1 zoning.
The Police Association has been at the property since 2001 and is moving out next year.
Designed by architects Ward and Carleton, the building was constructed by R S Phillips for tea merchant James Griffiths in 1907 and possesses elements from the English Elizabethan, Romanesque, and Norman periods of architecture. It became the Church of England Missionary Training Home for women missionaries, and then the Church of England Deaconess House in the 1930s.
It was used for apartments from in the 1960s and then as the offices of architecture firm Bates Smart from 1982 until the Police Association moved in.
Elizabeth Ring, reported by Nine as the purchaser, was married to Stephen Ring when Hong Kong-listed Biostime took over Swisse in a mega-deal seven years ago.
“1 Clarendon Street presented the only park-fronted corner opportunity of this scale in the Gardens precinct, the trophy location was ripe for astute property players,” Hay said.
“The campaign uncovered a huge depth of buyers ranging from investors, developers and owner occupiers, demonstrating the quality and versatility of this asset.”
The agents said the buyer is a private local owner occupier.
In the south-west corner of the suburb, Colliers has been marketing five levels of offices opposite the Treasury Gardens and next to the future potentially $2 billion Treasury Square development.
