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Big Little Mansions: Liane Moriarty buys Mosman’s most expensive house of 2023
By Lucy Macken
Liane Moriarty is renowned for her best-selling novels not to mention their critically acclaimed television adaptations by the likes of Reese Witherspoon and Nicole Kidman, but now she can add trophy home owner to her repertoire.
The house in question is set over three levels with five bedrooms and a pool, and was designed by architect Susan Rothwell in Mosman’s “golden triangle” and sold recently by Karen and Richard Leon, a senior executive at software company Altium.
Liane Moriarty has followed a well-worn route from the Upper North Shore to buy in Mosman.Credit: Domain
It was listed last month with Pello’s Stefon Bertram and his colleague David Smeallie with a $19 million guide, and sold well ahead of next week’s scheduled expressions of interest deadline for a reported $19.5 million to a buyer from the Upper North Shore.
Liane Moriarty is the Sydney born novelist who has sold about 20 million copies of her books.Credit:
Given no comment to inquiries by Moriarty nor Bertram, it was left to well-placed North Shore sources to reveal that Moriarty and her husband Adam Gatenby are behind the purchase.
Moriarty’s Pymble home is no slouch in the prestige housing stakes.
In 2015, Moriarty marked what was then the sale of some six million copies of her books by buying a house on Pymble’s “millionaire’s row” for $7.25 million. It sits on almost 3400 square metres behind a sandstone wall, and has a tennis court and swimming pool.
The five-bedroom, five-bathroom house is the most expensive house sold in Mosman this year, to date.Credit: Domain
Moriarty’s latest purchase puts her in coo-ee of fellow “Aussiewood” local Nicole Kidman, the Lavender Bay home owner who starred in the hit television adaptations of Moriarty’s best-selling novels Nine Perfect Strangers and Big Little Lies.
Earlier this month filming in Queensland halted on the series production of Moriarty’s latest book, Apples Never Fall, starring Annette Bening and Sam Neill, due to the writers’ strike in Hollywood.
Grocery boss trades up
The Hunters Hill house was previously owned by Winky Chow, and more recently sold for $9,025,000.Credit: Domain
Harris Farm’s co-chief executive Tristan Harris and his wife, Telstra board director Bridget Loudon, have purchased a contemporary house in Hunters Hill for $9.025 million.
Tristan Harris is swapping an apartment in Double Bay for a house in Hunters Hill.Credit: Louie Douvis
The five-bedroom house with a pool – not far from the most recently opened Harris Farm Market in Lane Cove – was sold by The Agency’s Lee Dowdell on behalf of Jian and Hassan Ammourh, and Jimmy and Hala Afiouny, who founded the Lakemba specialty store NutRoasters.
The purchase comes as Harris has set a July 31 deadline on the sale of his beachfront spread in Double Bay.
Tech entrepreneur Bridget Loudon was appointed to the Telstra board in 2020.Credit: Janie Barrett
These are two apartments atop an art deco block of 11 for which Harris paid almost $6.6 million two years ago.
Highland Property’s Denise Cameron said her $6.5 million-plus guide is a good deal, which it is given Harris will likely cop a loss due to almost $400,000 in stamp duty.
Woollahra’s royal title
The Woollahra home of Traveller’s global operations director Louisa Parker Bowles has sold for $2.17 million, following her move to Britain where a member of the family recently ascended to the throne of England.
The 1880s-built mansion Eurotas is now five apartments, of which one was sold by Louisa Parker Bowles for $2.17 million.Credit: Domain
To clarify, Parker Bowles is married to art consultant Sam Parker Bowles, nephew of Queen Camilla’s former husband Andrew Parker Bowles.
According to the blue-blood’s genealogical site, The Peerage, Sam Parker Bowles is the son of former London restaurateur Simon Parker Bowles and Carolyn Potter, the daughter of the late Aussie stockbroker and philanthropist Sir Ian Potter.
The sale of Louisa’s two-bedder in the converted Eurotas mansion ends her almost 30 years ownership since she purchased it in 1996 for $475,000.
Byron Bay’s slow-mover
Four Winds at Newrybar was sold for $8.3 million to Tom and Emma Lane.Credit: Domain
Fifteen years after retired publican Rick De Leede first listed his Byron Bay property it has finally sold, and for almost the $8.5 million asking price for which it was initially offered in 2008.
Emma and Tom Lane set a North Coast record earlier this year when they sold The Range for $33 million.Credit: Alicia Taylor
The $8.3 million buyer of the Newrybar property, known as Four Winds, was Tom Lane, of the Oroton fashion empire family who earlier this year sold his hinterland property, The Range, for $33.65 million.
Meanwhile, Lane and his wife Emma have also popped up on Southern Highlands property records having purchased the Bowral property Wirramirra for $9.75 million.
Still in Byron Bay, Claire Alexander-Johnston, known to her 100,000 followers on Instagram by her @JetsetMama handle, has spent $7.5 million for a waterfront house next door to her Belongil Creek property in an off-market deal through McGrath’s Nick Dunn.
Alexander-Johnston is the wife of TripADeal co-founder Richard Johnston, who with Norm Black sold a majority stake in the travel agency to Qantas last year.
The sale comes as McGrath’s Will Phillips is offering the designer residence next door of Gold Coast Titans co-owners Rebecca and Brett Frizelle with a guide of $11 million to $13 million.
The waterfront house at Byron Bay is being sold by Gold Coast Titans co-owners Rebecca and Brett Frizelle.Credit: Domain
Still on the North Coast, F45 co-founder Adam Gilchrist looks to have sold his commercial retail development site at Lennox Head for what local sources say is more than $4 million.
The exact result remains unknown given Elders Bangalow’s Nick Bordin was unavailable for comment.
Patience pays off
It’s taken two years to materialise on title records but finally former star stockbroker Andrew Kroger has purchased an apartment overlooking Bondi Beach.
The Smorgon family’s Bondi Beach pad was sold for $8.5 million.
The Melbourne-based brother of former Victorian Liberal Party president Michael Kroger has paid $8.5 million for the three-bedder getaway long owned by fellow Victorians Norman and Tania Smorgon, of the prominent Smorgon Steel dynasty.
Andrew Kroger was previously in negotiations to buy the nearby Bondi Beach pad owned by the Stolyar family.Credit: FairfaxMedia
It was sold by JT Allen’s Joshua Allen.
Two years ago Kroger exchanged to buy the sub-penthouse, also on Campbell Parade, from Faina Stolyar, who was forced to sell it by court-appointed bankruptcy trustees hoping to recoup debts owed by her son, former mining executive Ian Stolyar.
But that deal never got across the line, and instead Kroger had to resort to legal action to recoup $500,000 in deposit costs, as well as interest and costs.