John Spender's Woollahra Headingley House set for sale

By Jonathan Chancellor
Friday, 03 February 2012

Headingley House, the Woollahra home of John Spender QC, is set for sale.

It was his diplomat father, Sir Percy Spender, who bought it from the Kater pastoralist family in 1949 for £11,676.

About two years ago Russell Crowe and Danielle Spencer were allowed through Headingley House when Spender first thought he might get something like $18 million.

Its latest listing is through Ben Collier at McGrath.

The dapper Queens Counsel, who now does commercial arbitration, moved into the stunning Georgian-style Wellington Street residence in 1985. While he was the Member of the House of Representatives for the seat of North Sydney he would occasionally take the trip from his eastern suburbs home to the lower North Shore electorate in his late father's white Rolls Royce.

His politician father, an eminent jurist, had left his bar practice in 1949 and entered the Federal political arena when the Liberals took office and Sir Percy Spender became minister for external affairs, during which he negotiated the ANZUS Treaty. He then was posted to Washington in 1951 as Australian ambassador and in 1958 was appointed Australia's first judge of the International Court of Justice and in 1964 became its president.

Woollahra has had six sales above $10 million since 2007.

The record is a Rush Street compound for $16 million in 2008 which McGrath agents James Dack and Ben Collier secured for the Pagent family. It was a three-terrace Rush Street amalgamation spread over 588 sq m. The $16 million compound was bought by Rosanne Williams, partner of John Grill, from the oil and gas engineering firm Worley Parsons. During the Pagent family ownership, it had been extensively renovated by architect Alexander Tzannes, having traded in 1999 for $2.75 million

Last year's highest sale was $10.6 million.

The Kater pastoral dynasty headed by Sir Norman was centred around the 1900 Federation Cudal property Nyrang. Sir Norman, who was trained as a doctor, then took over the Egelabra Stud at Warren in 1910.

He died in 1965.