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Mosman’s surge in high-end house sales draws Sonia Kruger into its slipstream
By Lucy Macken
Mosman’s housing market is riding a surge of sales in the $10 million-plus range, from $30 million for the home of former pet food company boss David Grant to the $10.5 million paid for the doer-upperer of former MasterChef contestant-turned-vitamin businessman Jimmy Seervai.
For a bit of perspective, consider that Seervai paid just $5.82 million for the Esther Road house in 2020 before it was resold by Ray White’s Geoff Smith. And Grant paid $11 million in 2018 but at least undertook a major redesign before it was listed by Atlas’s Michael Coombs.
And this week there was an $18 million off-market sale of the Balmoral slopes home of Jacqueline and Riaan De Jager, co-founder of igaming intelligence platform DeepCI.
A Corben Architects-redesign on behalf of Sonia Kruger and Craig McPherson won an MBA award for “alterations and additions in 2022Credit: Atlas
All up, there are at least 13 sales in the ultra-prestige range already this year, which is not lost on local Gold Logie Award-winning television presenter Sonia Kruger and her husband, Seven’s director of news and public affairs Craig McPherson.
In the wake of the De Jager sale – for almost three times the $6.6 million they paid for it in 2017 –agent Michael Coombs has ushered a few high-end shoppers through the Kruger-McPherson designer digs a few doors down the road.
Sonia Kruger is the host of Big Brother, The Voice and Dancing With the Stars.
What’s more, Kruger’s five-bedroom residence has been slipped onto the Atlas website, showing off the Corben Architects-redesign that won an MBA award for alterations and additions in 2022 and includes such add-ons as an infinity swimming pool, studio, internal lift and separate guest quarters.
MacPherson and Kruger, who hosts reality TV series Big Brother, The Voice and Dancing With the Stars, purchased the house in 2015 for $6.475 million when they made the move from the Upper North Shore.
Also hoping to ride Mosman’s high-end market slipstream is Justine Forbes, the eldest daughter of billionaire Bob Ell.
Forbes has owned her Federation home, Athol, since 2017, paying $8.1 million when she moved there from her former home just two doors away.
Athol is a five-bedroom Federation house in Mosman owned by Justine Forbes, of the billionaire Ell family.Credit: Domain
With downsizing plans, Forbes has listed it with The Agency’s Claudia Portale with a guide of $14 million-$15 million.
High-tech buys
Senior tech executive Jessica Oppetit has purchased her first Sydney home, paying $12.3 million cash for a P&O-style house on oceanfront reserve at Clovelly.
The Clovelly property sold for $12.3 million to Flipdish chief operating officer Jessica Oppetit.Credit: Domain
Oppetit has done well in tech since she took up a consulting role at Apple a decade ago. After four years at London’s on-demand shuttle service tech company Via she joined Irish tech unicorn Flipdish, an online ordering system that in 2022 scored a $US100 million investment led by Chinese conglomerate Tencent.
Records show that Oppetit, daughter of entrepreneur and former Godfreys chief executive Tom Krulis, bought the six-bedroom property overlooking Gordons Bay through PPD’s Alexander Phillips.
Trophy homemakers
As star cricketers Alyssa Healy and Mitchell Starc took the keys to their equestrian estate in Terrey Hills this week for $24 million, luxury home builder Darren Mills and his wife Simone have landed on their new digs.
Alyssa Healy and Mitchell Starc purchased Charlotte Park at Terrey Hills for $24 million.Credit: Domain
Mills, who co-founded Cadence and Co, has paid $8 million cash for a 1.6 hectare property at the end of McCarrs Creek Road amid expectations of another trophy home project slated for the site.
The Mills family’s former home, Charlotte Park – and childhood home to their son, Swans captain Callum Mills – smashed all Forest District records when it sold late last year.
Among last year’s big-ticket sellers hatching plans for a repeat performance on the trophy home market are pastoralists Robert and Camilla Cropper.
The unrenovated terrace in Paddington sold to Camilla and Robert Cropper for $9 million at auction.Credit: Domain
The couple sold their Bellevue Hill house after a redesign by architect Luigi Rosselli for $39.35 million, making good on the $5.64 million they’d paid for it a decade ago.
According to an independent local source, they have bought in Paddington, paying $9 million for an ultra-wide terrace with a 7.6 metre frontage and rear stables.
Sold under the hammer through McGrath’s Georgia Cleary for the estate of Jennifer Cobcroft, the terrace is expected to be another major home redesign project for the Croppers.
Prestige doer-upper
Criminal defence lawyer Monique Tran and her partner Trevor Lam look to be planning a Bellevue Hill upgrade judging by their recent purchase of a house nestled among the suburb’s finest homes, such as the Rona estate and Queen Anne Revival-style mansion Caerleon.
The three-bedroom house of Anderson Stuart family sold under the hammer for $11.6 million.Credit: McGrath Paddington
The somewhat tired three-bedroom house last traded in 1961 when bought by the late Peter Anderson Stuart, and was listed for $10 million by McGrath’s Luke Hogan and Georgia Cleary.
A well-placed source said Tran and Lam were among five registered parties at the auction, which started at $8 million. The hammer fell on a bid of $11.6 million.