Palm Beach trophy home shoppers are on notice: one of only four grand estates alongside the surf club on Ocean Road has been quietly listed for sale, sparking speculation among those in the know that its sale result could hit $40 million.
When it last traded 20 years ago as a patch of dirt for a record $6.3 million, veteran property developers Bob and Margaret Rose were welcomed to the beach’s front row because their purchase marked an end to a protracted four-year battle between locals and the property’s former owners.
Bellona is the Palm Beach holiday home built by Bob and Margaret Rose in 2003.Credit:
The Forsyth family, of Dymocks bookstore fame, had owned the property since 1918 and built a Californian bungalow called Willeroon in 1923, but by 1997 the family wanted to demolish the original house to replace it with a larger, intergenerational mansion with garaging for eight cars.
The late TV boss and next-door neighbour Sam Chisholm was having none of it, and instead spearheaded a campaign to save the house on the grounds that the low-built homes set back on the embankment were a unique part of the suburb’s heritage.
Despite the backing of fellow neighbour Kerry Packer, and the National Trust urging the council to refuse the DA, it was demolished in 2001.
Margaret Rose, AM, recently purchased an Elizabeth Bay penthouse that was for decades the private retreat of the late Kerry Packer.
But the Forsyths opted out of building their family mansion, and instead put it to auction the following year.
Margaret Rose’s vision for her new house clearly aligned with Chisholm’s given it is set well back from the street, and was completed in 2003 to a design by architect Drew Barnyak.
The Hamptons-style residence with guest retreat stands alongside the neighbouring holiday homes of the Packers, Laurie Sutton’s Kalua estate and the Chisholm family’s Melaleuca, which was sold to Caledonia’s Mike Messara in 2020 for $24 million.
Originally published at Sydney News HQ
No comments:
Post a Comment