The six-bedroom residence on almost 2000 square metres was designed by colonial architect Edmund Blacket for Lebbeus Hordern and long owned by the Department of Defence until sold in 1998 for $2,275,000 to horse breeder Tony Petersen.
He then sold the property for $15 million in 2009 to luxury car dealer Terry Mullens and his wife Wendy, after his bid to subdivide the Macleay Street property failed – thanks to opposition from the likes of art critic Leo Schofield and the late Jack Mundey.
The Mullenses had been trying to sell the house since spring 2021, and settlement will reveal how they fared.
Great rates
As former coal magnate-turned-discharged bankrupt Nathan Tinkler chases a $30 million buyer for his gargantuan estate at Sapphire Beach, the City of Coffs Harbour is chasing him for five years worth of outstanding rates.
Or at least council is pursuing Tinkler’s Noorinya Holdings, the company that owns the two-hectare beachfront property and which was placed into administration two years ago.
For the record, it is not the administrator FTI Consulting, nor council pushing for the sale, but Tinkler himself, who hopes to secure a record price for the property his company purchased for $11.5 million back in 2008 when he was a billionaire.
Tinkler’s grand home is among 40 properties that owe a collective $1.15 million in outstanding rates and charges to the City of Coffs Harbour for the past five years, for which a motion was passed in April to proceed with the sale of land process.
Council declined to reveal the specific debt owed by each property, but its own website estimates rates payable on Tinkler’s home since 2018 total more than $105,000.
Given the property comes with 15 bedrooms, 15 bathrooms and a 25-metre lap pool, the sale should be good to at least cover the rates.
Quiet listing
Trophy home shoppers are being quietly offered the Bellevue Hill residence of pastoralists Robert and Camilla Cropper for $40 million by Sotheby’s Michael Pallier.
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The listing only came to light because the house next door sold last week for $61.5 million to freight boss Arthur Tzaneros, prompting a whole new take on the local price-per-square-metre game.
For those with the $40 million ready, the Cropper’s three-level house was purchased in 2014 for $5.64 million from Suzanne and Andrew Binetter, former chief of Nudie Juice. It was redesigned by architect Luigi Rosselli a year later into what is now a six-bedroom residence with formal and informal living rooms, music room, office, pool and basement garaging.