The legend of cricketing great Victor Trumper bats on through Sydney real estate: Title Tattle

By coincidence two Sydney properties associated with the legendary cricketer Victor Trumper are listed for sale.

Neither look much like they would have in his cricketing heyday, as they instead reflect the current cosmopolitan status of Sydney property.

Cricketing writer Phil Derriman once wrote that Trumper (1877-1915) belonged to that misty, idealised, long-ago period thatcricket historians call the "golden age".

The terrace at 112 Paddington Street, Paddington (pictured below), is where Trumper lived with his family from 1900-09. Legend, and common sense, suggests Trumper would walk home after his nearby SCG tests.

He would probably have lived there longer if his sister Alice had not died of tuberculosis in the house in 1908 – a tragedy that, according to Trumper's biographer Peter Sharpham, induced the family to move.

The 1880s terrace had been bought for £525 in 1900 by his father, Charles, and mother, Louise, and the family moved there from Liverpool Street. The family left in 1909 to Help Street, Chatswood. The terrace sold in 1912 to fruiterer Antonio Reitano for £615.

One past owner, lawyer Paul Bard, was conscious of the house's history when he bought it, although it was the house and its north-facing backyard that attracted him.

Bard said there were often people outside just having a look.

It last sold for $3.5 million in 2008. Its prior sales was $2.3 million in 2004; $1.3 million in 1994; and $240,000 in 1985. 

Its been listed for March 2 auction through Ben Collier at McGrath Real Estate who says the three bedroom, three-bathroom house on 192 square metres been "enriched by its artistic flair, designer inclusions and historical elegance".

"This grand north facing Paddington terrace embodies a flexible family floorplan that spans across casual/formal living spaces to a delightful selection of outdoor entertaining areas," Ben Collier's marketing says.

At Mona Vale, there's another property with a Trumper link that goes to February 28 auction.

It's a modern house now overlooking Bungan Beach (pictured above), but on initial construction it was apparently the third house built on Hillcrest Avenue. The simple facade of timber and sandstone beach house conceals the sweeping contemporary coastal vista. On its 2010 listing with the McGrath agency The Manly Daily outlined its supposed linkage to the great Victor Trumper.

"It was a holiday home of the Trumper family," the latest listing agent, LJ Hooker Mona Vale's Jo Cowling cautiously told Title Tattle this week, adding it was held by the family until the early 1980s. Documentation obtained by Title Tattle indicate it sold to the current vendors for $82,000 in 1980.

"Someone, who knows someone, who knows someone, thinks that both Victors enjoyed playing cricket and hitting sixes from the backyard all the way to Bungan Beach depending on prevailing winds.

"I personally find this hard to believe," she wisely added.

Of course while it was certainly a Trumper holiday home, its more likely the sixes were  from a holidaying Victor Trumper Jnr, (1913-1981) who was also a cricketer playing seven first-class games. The Australian Dictionary of Biography notes in the 1917 administration of Victor Trumper's intestate estate it was valued at £5. 

Officially the first time Title Tattle can see the Trumper name appear on the Mona Vale registered title is actually in 1965 through a Olga Trumper, with the property having been previously in the Cochrane family since 1925. Its then was inherited by Charles Trumper in 1980.

Anyway, the myths and associations endure, long after stumps.