Live like a Teal MP: Kylea Tink lists $5.5 million Northbridge home

Fordham, who was billed as a co-executive producer on John Ibrahim series Last King Of The Cross, is expected to consolidate the 1300-square-metre parcel, returning Spicer House to the land size it was in the 1980s when owned by media commentator Bettina Arndt.

The Fordhams have always been a tight-knit bunch, so it is perhaps unsurprising that after family patriarch and legendary media manager John Fordham died in 2019, his kids Nick, 2GB’s Ben Fordham and artist Sarah Fordham have rallied around Veronica.

But it is Nick who has created the family compound, of which the most recently acquired house was sold by barrister Jason Downing and Amanda Lintott, founder of luxury car products company Autonomy Co.

Downing and Lintott have, in turn, taken their money to Newtown, setting a house price record of $6.85 million for one of the grand Victorian terraces opposite Hollis Park through BresicWhitney’s Darren Pearce. It tops the previous high of $5.87 million set last year by poet Erin Shiel.

The best buyer in the eastern suburbs is often the next door neighbour. Stephen Dash, who founded US-based online student loan marketplace Credible, hasn’t settled on his $33 million trophy home in Bellevue Hill yet but has already protected his view by buying the house next door.

Dash, who in May bought the architect Dino Burattini-designed home of the late art dealer Eva Breuer and developer Tom Breuer, has bought a house in front that was recently sold for about $8 million by Pillinger’s Brad Pillinger on behalf of the Breuer estate.

Mosman commute

No more guesses who bought Qantas chief Alan Joyce’s Mosman home last week for about $21 million. It was finance industry veteran David Hannon and Sonja Holm, of local furniture and homewares retailer Home & Clan.

Hannon, the chair of Lithium Power and head of private investment bank Chifley Investment, and Holm are already Mosmanites, having purchased their East Coast Americana-style home overlooking Middle Cove in 2011 for $6.2 million.

Given Joyce and his husband Shane Lloyd only owned the house a year, and Ray White’s David Gillan and Geoff Smith bettered their $19 million purchase price by some $2 million, who knows what the Holm and Hannon home would be worth, especially given it is one of the few local north-facing blocks with a tennis court.

Don’t be surprised to see it hit the market soon.

Vaucluse vandal

No sign yet of who recently agreed to pay more than $36 million for the Balagiannis hotelier family’s Vaucluse mansion, but there’s bad news awaiting them when they eventually take the keys.

A century-old palm that has long featured as a centrepiece to the harbour views from the Balagiannis family home was illegally chopped down in the middle of the night, prompting the National Parks and Wildlife Services to request anyone with information to come forward.

The incident took place shortly before Bradfield BadgerFox’s Peter Leipnik sold the opulent mansion on behalf of Susan Balagiannis. Clearly the tree’s demise didn’t hurt the sale price.

Still with the perilous life of Vaucluse’s trees, a row of three Sydney red gums (aka Angophoras) on the curbside of Wentworth Road outside the Ganeden mansion were poisoned early this year, forcing council to remove them at the roots.

But in good news for car dealing billionaires Helen and Yi Huang, who bought Ganeden 18 months ago for $62.75 million, council says there are plans afoot to replace the felled trees with mature red gums.

Bekier scores a jackpot

Matt Bekier, the former chief of The Star casino, and his wife Melinda kicked off their weekend with a bullish sale of their designer beachfront getaway on the South Coast.

Christie’s Darren Curtis listed the Callala Beach residence in April with a $6.5 million guide given the couple’s plans to spend more time travelling, and a sold sign went up late on Friday.

Bekier stepped down from the top job at the casino last year amid a damning inquiry by the NSW gambling regulator into its money laundering controls.

The couple commissioned the four-bedroom residence seven years ago on a site purchased in 2014 for $1.1 million.