Title Tattle looks back at the past 12 months, compiling its traditional end of financial year review of prestige house sales across Sydney.

They topped out at around $38 million, with just over $11 million being required to feature on the list.

I discuss the trends elsewhere with Margie Blok on the regular He Said/She said column.

There’s still mystery to prices and buyers, which await official settlements. Here’s the interim list that Property Observer will update once it all comes to light.

The modernist Mosman waterfront home of Robert and Vassily Skinner fetched $11.06 million when sold last December to Gu Xun. It had been listed through Geoff Smith of LJ Hooker Mosman in conjunction with Nic Doig and Brendan Warner of Raine Horne Mosman.

The Carrington Avenue property (pictured below) had $15 million price hopes when listed in August 2010 with other agents. Designed by Alexander Michael, the late 1980s four-bedroom residence sits on a 780 square metre block which cost $530,000 in 1983, and then built the house during the late 1980s. 

The sale by Takashi Honjo in Vaucluse intrigues. 

Designed by architectural firm Allan Jack + Cottier with interior design by Tim Allison Associates, the Vaucluse Road residence (pictured below) was bought in June 2012 for $11.7 million. It then quite quickly resold at $11.33 million to Akihiko Terada.

The house was best remembered as built by the Kariappa family on a 1080 square metre block with a tennis court and pool. 

Last December David Crow spent $11.6 million for his mansion on Victoria Road, Bellevue Hill which was the home of the former Network Nine senior executive Lynton Taylor and his wife, Ros. The Taylors, who moved to a $10.5 million Darling Point apartment, had been their home since they bought it from Ron Doff in 2006.

Meanwhile the 1920s Beresford Road, Rose Bay home of Crow, the chief executive of British American Tobacco Australia, sold at just under $7.5 million.

Perhaps a little excitable were recent reports that well over $11 million was secured for the Bellevue Hill home of Jeremy Reid and his wife, Tammi. It probably should be on the list, but we will await the official settlement on the 2,100 square metre property Reid bought in 2005 for $9.25 million. It passed in at recent auction at $10.65 million. 

There’s also whispers that the Drumalbyn Road home of Peter Cosgrove, chairman of APN News and Media, sold for $11 million plus to Gary Symons, director of investment company Mariner Securities, and his wife, Jane Hewitt, who founded UniLodge in 1996, highlighting the re-emergence of the Bellevue Hill market.

Greg Clarke, who once headed Lend Lease, and his wife, Anne, paid $14.5 million for the Mosman harbour-front home of retired banker Ken Borda and his wife, Ellen in 2007.

Now London-based, the Clarkes have had the Curraghbeena Road, Mosman, house (pictured below) listed for sale on and off over the past four years. They always hoped to get their money back, though the listing agent Paul Gotch of Gotch Real Estate had been quoting $12 million-plus in 2010. Then on its 2012 listing it was noted it was paid for in British pounds when the exchange rate with the Australian dollar was much stronger.

So with no word of its sale price Title Tattle will make it at around $12 million, and conclude the currency transaction may have even meant the sale yielded a profit.

Kahala, the new Clareville waterfront four years in the making (pictured below), sold in the northern beaches’ highest result of $12 million when bought in January by American William Samuel Fox III and his Australian-born wife Anne. The north facing 25 metre beachfront comes with tri-level home on its cascading 1,663 square metre Hudson Parade site.

There are views across the Pittwater to Lion and Scotland islands. At the water’s edge it boasts boatshed with the sale including a 6.1 metre amphibious sealegs boat thrown in. It was listed through LJ Hooker Avalon agent David Watson and Christie’s International agent Ken Jacobs. with property columnist Margie Blok writing its grounds came with a meditation hut and a pizza oven.

The property on Sydney’s northern beaches peninsula had been listed at more than $12.5 million by David Desmarchelier, chief executive at Boartes Consulting, a security company that had contracts for the Sydney 2000 Olympic Games. Its 2007 purchase was $9.15 million. 

Article continues on the next page. Please click below.