1. Two Terraces for the Price of Three in Woollahra

    A pair of adjoining terraces at 71-73 Moncur Street in Woollahra have listed together with expectations over $3.6m. Such pricing is bullish when considering some other comparables on Moncur Street, especially on the north side of the street. 

    The more desirable portion of the street is the two petit blocks between Queen and Oxford Streets which lack the ear-splitting 389 bus roaring past and possess rear lane access (hello, off street parking!). Fittingly, just one of the three highest prices on the street have been commanded on the block north of Queen Street. #87 traded in 2010 for $4.0m, #50 (south of Queen Street) traded in 2006 for $4.0m, and most recently #35 (also south of Queen Street) traded for $3.8m earlier this year. All three of those comps were recently renovated and rested on 247sqm, 228sqm, and 303sqm, respectively. With 71 and 73 Moncur both clocking in around 145sqm, the combined terraces reflects a similar size and price as the aforementioned sales, yet with interiors that would require at least $1m and one year in order to properly integrate the two. The lack of parking (and the impossibility of adding parking) further deteriorates the pricing hopes for the combo. Then again, it could be argued the value is keeping the two terraces independent of each other and either lease them out or renovate and sell individually, hoping someone will pay well over $2.5m for a renovated terrace without a car space on a well-travelled (but desirable!) Woollahra Road. We may have our doubts, but then again, if it can happen in Paddington, it can most certainly happen in Woollahra!

    For the record, the current owner first picked up 73 Moncur Street for $600k in 1994, then acquired neigbhouring 71 Moncur Street for nearly the same price - $610k - three years later in 1997; making his little Woollahra compound a $1.2m chunk of land. 

    Randall Kemp and Evan Williams of Ray White Woollahra have the listing: 71-73 Moncur Street, Woollahra

    Click below for some lackluster listing photos and no floor plan (womp womp). 

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  2. Name That Demolished Mansion!

    Remember when Woollahra was the bucolic home to mansions set on multiple acres of gardens and open space? Yeah, neither do we; but the suburb did begin that way. Case in point is the now-demolished mansion ‘Wallaroy’. The Victorian Gothic home sat on a parcel of land on Edgecliff Road just north of where Rosemont Avenue intersects. The property stretched all the way down to Manning Road and was filled with formal gardens. The Radical Terrace believes the second photo above was actually taken from the property (or roof?) of the prominent party mansion Merioola (located across Edgecliff Road from ‘Wallaroy’). That would imply that the dirt cutout crossing the hill in the background is Bellevue Road. Any further insight out there? Let us know in the comments!

  3. One Woollahra Manse Sells, Another Lingers


    327D Edgecliff Road (above) sold for “over $6m”; nearby 337A Edgecliff Road (below) still sits on the market with $5m+ hopes.

    Although some property commentators seemed to think that the sale of a Woollahra estate on the Edgecliff Road hilltop for $6m+ was a sign that the luxury property market is back and churning, those individuals may have missed a listing of comparable size, vintage, and a near identical location that continues to sit on the market, failing to attract a buyer. 337A Edgecliff Road, a 1930 home that was featured on Radical Terrace when it first came to market, last traded in Aug 2010 for $4.81m. Sotheby’s now has the listing and are hoping the recent lovin’ that 327D Edgecliff Road got will somehow rub off on them.

  4. An (Almost) Original Woollahra Terrace To Auction for $1.5m+

    A Woollahra terrace on ever-desirable Moncur Street is to go to auction with pricing expectations set around $1.5m; it’s so original, in fact, that it maintains an exterior fireplace likely used for food preparation originally. Although not all original features have maintained themselves: at some point the kitchen was quite bizarrely moved into an upstairs bedroom, with the front bedroom converted to a family room. The home’s sale price will no doubt set a precedent for an unrenovated terrace in the 2-0-2-5, seeing that you’re really just buying the address, the edifice, and the bones. Renovated properties on Moncur Street have traded as high as $4m in the past few years. Timothy Gorring and James Keenan of Ray White Double Bay have the listing.

    Click below to see more images and listing information.

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  5. Bill Bridges’ ‘Oops’ Moment

    Earlier this week we highlighted a triple-listed Neo-Georgian town residence in Woollahra. At that time, only 1/3 of the listings hit the open market. Today, Ballard Property Group agent Bill Bridges unveiled his take on the listing. The description reads well and the photos are the same! Yay for cross-broker communication! One minor issue though: the address and suburb are wholly wrong. 3 Wellington Street in Woollahra somehow became 3 Victoria Road in Bellevue Hill.  It’s a mighty shame too because the Radical Terrace got quite excited at the prospect of a ‘Wirian’ listing, the 1923 Arts & Crafts estate that is the real 3 Victoria Road in Bellevue Hill. Wirian is, interestingly enough, home of psychedelic artist Martin Sharp. 

  6. Triple-Listed Woollahra ‘Town Residence’ Wants $6m+

    Margie Blok broke news of the listing of 3 Wellington Street in a super-prime Woollahra locale. Situated just a few doors down from Headingley - the previously featured mansion that mysteriously disappeared from the listings a few weeks back - the 5/6-bedroom, 5-bathroom home on 457sqm has not one, not two, but three listing agents: Sally Hampshire of Laing + Simmons, Bill Bridges of Ballard Property, and Martin Schiller of Savills Residential. WTF? As of today (the property appeared on the “live” listings about 12 hours ago), only Sally Hampshire’s listing is visible (seen here). To combat that surprise with a lack-of-surprise, Paul Bangay is behind the gardens. The clean lines of his hedges suit the Neo-Georgian architecture (that Margie Blok weirdly, and mistakenly, calls “South African Colonial”) home well. It was constructed in 1990 under the design of David Walker after the sale of a tear-down in 1987 for $677k. In 2000, the home sold for $4m and today, the listing agents (all three of them), are expecting above $6m for the home. Residences on the more-desirable south side of Wellington Street rarely trade. Next-door neighbours #1 and #5 sold for $2.49m in Sep 1997 and $2.25m in Aug 1995, respectively. 

    The listing: 3 Wellington Street, Woollahra

  7. Elegant 1930s Woollahra Estate Wants a Refresh and More Than $4.5mil

    Michael Pallier of Raine & Horne Double Bay scored a desirable Leslie Wilkinson-esque 1930s listing. The four-bedroom abode comes with a sunny and sizeable backyard, harbour glimpses, and a private Woollahra hillside locale. On the downside? An awkwardly small shared driveway with neigbhours and a slightly “detached” parking (a 2006 addition?). Nonetheless, the Radical Terrace majorly digs the bones of the house would love to see Luigi Roselli make it over. Pricing indications reveal expectations in the high-$4mils.

    The listing: 337a Edgecliff Road, Woollahra

  8. ‘Family Friendly’ Terrace on the Woollahra Side of Jersey Road Lists in Mid-$2mils

    Jersey Road is a sacred locale in Eastern Suburbs real estate. Once named ‘Point Piper Street’ and serving as the main path from South Head Rd (now Oxford St) to Point Piper Estate in Darling Point (see 1858 Point Piper Estate parcel map when it was first divided and 1878 Sands Directory map below), the road now holds a far more important and unique honour: it is, undoubtedly, a Paddington aesthetic that lives on the road - with rows of uniform Victorian terrace houses, however the east side of the road scores an ever-so-desirable Woollahra 2025 address. Thus makes a “half-and-half” - where one side of the street holds one suburb address and post code, the other side another. These are fun testing grounds for the relative prestige of a suburb name. Back on Jersey Rd, the slightly better-endowed (architecturally speaking, that is) Woollahra side of the road has the added bonus of scoring a quartet of late Victoiran detached villas (numbers 17, 19, 21, and 23), a handful of oddly idiosyncratic one-off terraces (weatherboards and all!), and the handsome church-turned-condos at number 109, anchoring Jersey Road firmly as a particularly beautiful Sydney streetscape.

    (Fun fact: the alleyway behind Jersey Road - ‘Point Piper Ln’ - is, of course, named after its original big brother road.)

    So resting pretty on the east side of the road - next to the quartet of villas and with easy access to Oxford Street - number 9 emerged on the market this past week. Jane Schumann and Gary Sands at Di Jones landed the by-the-book Victorian terrace listing and rightly flaunt the terraces ‘family friendly’ qualities. And by ‘family friendly’ qualities we mean the terrace functions well as a kindergarten art classroom, at least if the listing photos indicate anything. But seriously, couldn’t they have taken some of these pictures down?  The 3-bedroom, 2-bathroom, 1-car spot (the magical 3:2:1 terrace ratio!) and is looking for mid-$2mils. The home last sold for $1.5m back in September 2002, and comps speak well for high prices in this micro-neighbourhood seeing that Oyama, one of the four villas, sold for more than $7m earlier this month.

    Now for some finger painting (and a really big tree)… 

    The listing: 9 Jersey Rd, Woollahra

  9. This Week in House Flips (or Distressed Sales?)

    Two multi-million dollar Eastern Suburbs listings emerged on the market this week that led to some raised eyebrows here at Radical Terrace. Both abodes are the result of book-time (2007/2008) speculative apartment redevelopments. First up (pictured above and below) is a full-floor unit in the 7-unit serviced apartment conversion ‘The Grantham’, situated in a tiny cul-de-sac at the tip of Potts Point. The development received significant positive press when it first came to market, but slugged along when it came to the actual sale of the units. Nonetheless, each full-floor apartment commanded a high price, with lower floors achieving $5.5m, mid-floors at $6.25m, and a high floor (presumably the now-listed Unit 7) for $7.25m.

    It’s difficult to ascertain what listing agents Jason Boon and Geoff Cox (the original marketers of the block) want for the 3-bedroom apartment, but it’s currently the second most expensive home on the market in Potts Point, second only to the merchant villa ‘Bomera’. The Radical Terrace believes the owners will get around the $7m mark and take a small hit to their pocket books. And considering The Grantham (see above) resembles more of a Brazilian favela than a luxury apartment block, any price is a good one. The listing: 7/1 Grantham St, Potts Point

    Heading a few kilometres east to Woollahra, we now check out a former inter-war apartment block on Queen Street that was converted into two townhouses in 2008. Sold “new” in September 2009 for $3.275m after spending quite some time on the market, 166A Queen Street is now listed 3 years later with reduced price hopes in the low-$3ms. The developer (Teh Howell?) initially bought the block of apartments for $3.68m in 2007 before embarking on a $700k renovation which saw the addition of a top-floor master suite and hydraulic lifts for the two units and the loss of any character features. D’Leanne Lewis and Patrick Moxey of Laing+Simmons Double Bay have the listing. Pictured below.

  10. Woollahra Mansion ‘Orama’ Sells Off-Market for ~$7m

    Remember Mandolong House, one of the Radical Terrace’s favourites spreads in Mosman that sold for $18m earlier this year? Well, Margie Blok is reporting (and we’re hoping she’s not just jumping the gun on us again) that Jersey Road’s ‘Orama’ has sold to the Roberts-Thompson family that decamped from Mandolong House after they enlisted Smart Design Studios in a stunning renovation. Considering Orama, on the Woollahra side of Jersey Rd in a prestigious pocket of friendly Georgian manor homes, is in need of some TLC (see below), we’re expecting a hefty renovation. The home last sold for $6.06m in July 2006. The Radical Terrace is expecting some serious rehabilitation and we’re eager to find out if the Roberts-Thompson clan enlists Smart Design Studio again or if they go for the Tanner Architects DA-approved designs that came with the house sale. The below photos are from the retired 2006 listing that Di Jones still has floating around on the web. 

  11. More Early Victorians List in Woollahra

    This week has seen a surprising number of Early Victorian homes hitting the market in Woollahra. Surprising because few homes existed in Woollahra before 1870. By the time Woollahra officially became a municipality in 1860, its namesake estate - Woollahra House - was less than 10 years old and only a small collection of homes existed, mostly clustered around today’s Queen Street village and Edgecliff Road (Glen Rhoda being a prime example). By the time regular tram service reached Woollahra in the 1880s, development took off.

    But back to today’s interesting listings. First off is an apartment in the Early Victorian sandstone block ‘Kilvington’. Formerly a single family mansion converted to apartment use in the 1920s, the exterior has been immaculately well-kept and is therefore Heritage Listed (the interiors - to the joy of renovators the world over - is not heritage listed). However, the good of the listing - Apartment 3/313 Edgecliff Road - ends with the exterior. The interiors are pretty uninspiring; although the true deal breaker on the apartment is the impossible floor plan. I’ve been lucking at this sucker for a solid 5 minutes and I can’t come up with any reasonable solution. Any thoughts? Sally Hampshire of Laing + Simmons Double Bay has the listing and is looking for something in the high $2m/low $3m. YIKES!

    Next up we head over to another rarity: Broughman House, another c.1860 Early Victorian. It’s so early Early Victorian, it has some straight-up Georgian Colonial vibes going on; give it bluestone instead of sandstone and one would think you’re outside of Hobart. Nonetheless, the historic abode is now run as a Jewish Hospice. Jonathan Chancellor over at Title Tattle reports that the owners would like $4.5m+ AND that listing agent Elliott Placks of Ray White Double Bay will donate his commission to charity (The Radical Terrace thinks Elliott Placks is looking for some brownie points with the Jewish Eastern Suburbs community here…). But back to the house, it sits on 1,300sqm of blue chip land that’s likely too uncomfortably close to Syd Einfeld Drive to be seriously considered as a single family mansion again. It’s best hope is taking advantage of its multi-family zoning and doing a redevelopment. The home and land apparently last sold for $1.2m in 1999, but something seems a bit “off” about that price…

  12. Glen Rhoda - one of Woollahra’s Earliest Homes - Lists at a Loss ($6m)

    One of the most significant homes on the Woollahra hillside listed this week. The home was constructed in 1863, one of the first homes (of merit) constructed on the eastern side of Woollahra on what was then called “Denison Road”, the road that snaked up Double Bay to Woollahra and now called Wallaroy Road. Glen Rhoda sits on a flagpole lot down a driveway from the road and is of historical worth due to its Victorian Gothic stylings that have only been moderately altered since construction.  The home last sold in May 2004 for $6.15m, and seeing the owners are now wanting $6m+ for the home, it’s likely they stand to lose some money. Furthermore, for the last several years the property has been off and on the rental market, asking anywhere from $4,000 per week on up to $8,000 per week. 

    The listing is held - yet again - by a McGrath Eastern Suburbs, this time it’s Peter Starr. 71 Wallaroy Street, Woollahra

  13. Alex Tzannes-Designed Woollahra Terrace Lists; Wants $7m

    Ben Collier and Andrew Hackett of McGrath - Eastern Suburbs have once again nabbed a trophy Woollahra listing designed by society favourite Alex Tzannes. Located at 176 Queen Street, in the desirable East-of-Ocean Queen Street location, the four bedroom, three bath home comes with a double lock-up garage and a 1,500 bottle wine cellar. Tzannes, you may know, has designed some of Sydney’s most expensive homes (including the Woollahra record breaking “double wide” on Rush Street, the overweight Aussie Home Loans CEO’s Point Piper apartment block mansion, and the currently-under-construction renovation of the James Packer Vaucluse compound). The home features some very iconically-Tzannes features: skylights, clerestories, bold shapes. But what’s up with the dome lights? Regardless, we dig the double-height dining room and the well-lit nature of the terrace that could have easily been dark and cramped. $7m+ hopes.

    The listing: 176 Queen Street, Woollahra

  14. Same Plan, Same Building, Big Price Difference

    It’s not every day that two apartments in the same building are up for sale (wait a minute…), so today is extra special because we have two apartments in the extra-beautiful 1930 “Lyndhurst Gardens” building located in the heart of Woollahra’s prime Consular Belt (which, really, is just Rosemont Street). Funnily enough, both estate agents representing the respective apartments claim it to be a “tightly held” building despite 11% of the block currently on the market. But we will give the agents some credit, as the Radical could only find one sale in the building: Unit 4’s $1.7m 2009 sale). 

    Lynhurst Gardens itself has maintained its historic relevancy for quite some time, and not just because of its stunning forecourt. The earliest mention of the block we dug-up in our cursory search was from a 1931 Sydney Herald classified advertising an “Unfurnished Flat, commanding glorious harbour views; Entrance hall with cloak room…living rooms, 6 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms, garage, Hot water and rcfrlgetator [sic] services Moderate rent Caretaker on premises” 18 years later, in 1949, the entire block sold in one-line for £65,500. At that time, the advertisement reveals the brick building to hold 18 apartments, the same number that exists today. 

    Flash forward to 2012 and the first floor Unit 9 is seeking $2.18m. Top (second) floor Unit 15 wants $3.5m. Both apartments are 171 sqm in size, feature four bedrooms, two bathrooms, and a lock-up garage. However Unit 15 has a far superior floor plan with a division of living and sleeping space dictated by a central foyer (reminiscent of a Rosario Candela or J.E.R. Carpenter apartment, of the same time period, in New York City). Unit 9’s floor plan, on the other hand, sucks, with the kitchen crammed in the back and the bedrooms scattered about. But is such a difference in interior walls worth $1.32m?!? 

    Georgia Cleary and Linda Juleff of BradfieldCleary are representing the Unit 9 listing, while Penny Timothy and Ian Campbell of Ray White Elizabeth Bay have the Unit 15 listing.

  15. Price Chopping in Woollahra for $3.4m+ $2.95m Terrace A former featured property in Woollahra is chopping it’s price from $3.4m down to the sub-$3m price of $2.95. I guess the gilt-edged interiors (and noisy Ocean Road location?) are acting as a deterrent to buyers? Gary Sands and Susanna Anderson of Di Jones have the 3-bedroom terrace listing at 13 Ocean Street. And it’s entering a pretty buyer-friendly pricing for the post code 2025. We’ll be keeping our eyes on this property.  The comps: Attached (and slightly smaller) next door neighbour, 15 Ocean Street, sold for $1.7m back in October 2002.

    Price Chopping in Woollahra for $3.4m+ $2.95m Terrace

    A former featured property in Woollahra is chopping it’s price from $3.4m down to the sub-$3m price of $2.95. I guess the gilt-edged interiors (and noisy Ocean Road location?) are acting as a deterrent to buyers? Gary Sands and Susanna Anderson of Di Jones have the 3-bedroom terrace listing at 13 Ocean Street. And it’s entering a pretty buyer-friendly pricing for the post code 2025. We’ll be keeping our eyes on this property. 

    The comps: Attached (and slightly smaller) next door neighbour, 15 Ocean Street, sold for $1.7m back in October 2002.

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