Singer Shannon Noll and his wife, Rochelle, have sold their five-bedroom Lilli Pilli home (pictured above) for $1.26 million and are selling up their regional home base cottage as they seemingly upgrade homes. The recently sold two-storey, American homestead-style abode in the Sutherland Shire had cost $1,285,000 in 2005 after Noll’s Australian Idol stardom. Noll's first house was bought in late 2002 - before he was catapulted into the charts and onto the Dancing With the Stars dance floor – which cost $150,000 in Condobolin (pictured below).
It was listed with $230,000 hopes late last year, then $220,000 hopes and is now scheduled for May 12 auction through Ray White Parkes agent Kim Noll. The Lilli Pilli house had been listed through Greg Gilbert Real Estate and Abode Carringbah.
The Cronin Island, Gold Coast property (pictured above) of Nicole Perrin, wife of former Billabong surfwear entrepreneur Matthew Perrin, has been settled, with the sold price being $6.1 million. It had been passed in at $5.9 million at its January auction through Michael Willems of Ray White Surfers Paradise, but was briefly valued for borrowing purchases for Matthew at $15 million in 2008. It’s the three-level Southern Cross Drive house, the subject of a court battle between Perrin and the Commonwealth Bank, which unsuccessfully sought to seize it in a bid to recover a $13.5 million debt owed by Matthew after he filed for bankruptcy in 2009. The contemporary mansion with seven bedrooms and eight bathrooms straddles a double block. There’s also a 10-car garage. It’s been bought by Terry Gavan.
Brougham House (pictured above), one of the original Woollahra estate, has been listed for sale. It sits in north-facing gardens with open level lawn and a mature Norfolk Island and Hoop pine trees. The Nelson Street holding is listed through Ray White Elliott Placks. Built in the early 186's, added to in 1870 and again in the 1900s, the house was occupied by Judge James Dowling of the District Court, up to the early 1900s and then by solicitor Frederick King up to the early 1930s. It was purchased by the NSW government, and used until 1992 under the control of the Department of Youth. The 1,309-square-metre landholding has been listed by Jewish Care with $4.5 million-plus hopes. Placks will donate his commission fee to charity.
Avondale (pictured above), the striking Wharf Road, Gladesville residence, has been listed for May 17 Savills auction. It's a landmark estate on a 2,141-square-metre waterfront grounds block. The house dates back to 1888, with renovations undertaken in 1993 and 2009. It’s an ornate Victorian residence built by solicitor Edwin Sandys Lumsdaine, the husband of Banjo Paterson's sister, Rose Florence Paterson. A son of Reverend William Lumsdaine, he was also a religious, having a small chapel built within the house, which is now used as a study. The grounds have the original stables, which have been converted to a self-contained guest house overlooking a 16-metre swimming pool. There's also an 1830s sandstone cottage, Rockend, which was the home of Banjo Paterson's grandmother and as a young man, the iconic bush poet lived there with her.
With ornate original details throughout, the two-storey residence has elegant formal sitting and dining rooms, five bedrooms, three bathrooms and a modern marble kitchen. More than $4.8 million is being sought by the Savills listing agents Adam Ross and Shayne Harris.
The Honan family has finally sold its redundant hillside Palm Beach retreat, Lethington, through LJ Hooker Palm Beach agents David Edwards and Peter Robinson. It's a four-bedroom, 1922 sandstone residence set on a 1,256-square-metre block with a somewhat neglected mini-tennis court. The ridge-line Palm Beach Road house dates back to Sir Herbert Lethington Maitland, an eminent Sydney surgeon, who bought the property in 1922. He demolished the existing house and built the present one with sandstone quarried from the site. The house was named Lethington but locals still refer to it as the Maitland House. The listing in April last year followed the Honans' late 2010 purchase of Lango, the three-level 1960s house set on 1,433 square metres above the rock pool at Palm Beach. It was sold to the Honans for $10.05 million by the Cross family, who'd paid $750,000 in 1969. The family patriarch, Dick Honan, chairman of the ethanol-producing Manildra Group, have always hovered around trophy property, as Title Tattle recalls an auction in 1994 when the family unsuccessfully sought to buy on the beach when Melaleuka, the Pratten family's bungalow, was sold for $3.1 million to the Chisholm family. Title Tattle would be surprised if the family didn't give due considerations to have bought Kalua.
But of course it was retired car dealer Laurie Sutton who bought Kalua (pictured above), the Joye family’s plantation-style Palm Beach trophy home. It sold at a record price for the suburb, with Sutton and his wife, Di, likely to have paid a tad short of its ambitious $25 million expectations set when Kalua was listed last September, perhaps closer to $23 million or so. It’s the second highest price ever paid for a beachfront holiday home in Australia, the highest being the $26 million Ilyuka estate at Portsea in late 2010. Kalua is the 1920s Ocean Road holiday home best known as having been the prestige Christmas holiday rental for international luminaries including Nicole Kidman, John Cleese and James Murdoch, although it didn’t get a mention in the mid-week Leveson Inquiry. Sutton and his wife will be the 1920s beach bungalow’s third owner. It was last sold by the Horden retailing family to the more entrepreneurial Joye family, the current vendors, for $330,000 in 1978. It was listed by Ken Jacobs and Darren Curtis at Christies International in conjunction with LJ Hooker Palm Beach agents David Edwards and Peter Robinson, who are under instructions not to speak with the media about any detail of the sale. There’s no confirmation whether Sutton took up the offer of taking 60% vendor financing.
Kia Pajouhesh, the Melbourne dentist who established Smile Solutions, has bought the 39th whole-floor Royal Domain Tower sub-penthouse. With 557 square metres of space, it’s been sold by Joanne Cookes, the wife of former Venture Stores Group owner Colin Cookes.
More than $8 million is the reputed selling price of the St Kilda Road apartment through Kay & Burton agent Andrew Baines. It has views across the Shrine, city, Botanic Gardens and the bay. It comes with three bedrooms and a study plus a separate self-contained, one-bedroom apartment along with parking for eight cars. It was reportedly listed at $15 million last October, when it became the first sub-penthouse to come up for four years. It was bought by the Cookes family in 2007 from Ross and Jennifer Palazzesi for $5.35 million. The Cookes had sold their Toorak mansion to Solomon Lew's daughter, Jacqueline, for about $8.6 million.
The Cookes family had an involvement in the retailing industry for more than nine decades. The 42-level apartment block is substantially higher than most other residential projects on St Kilda Road, which are restricted to about 15 levels.
Terry Ryder 
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