The couple’s new digs is a three-level house with a pool that was built a decade ago to a design by architect Stephen Varady.
Strawbridge’s former home was the historic Dalkeith mansion in Cremorne that was sold last year for $9.325 million to King Charles III’s family friend Edward Dawson-Damer, son of the seventh Earl of Portarlington George Dawson-Damer.
Corporate records place Banton as a recent resident at the Rose Bay waterfront home of her sister, leading litigator Amanda Banton, having split from her former husband Jack Singleton, son of adman John Singleton, in 2017.
And if proof were ever needed that everyone in the eastern suburbs has either dated or is related, Singleton junior’s ex-girlfriend is one Annie Cannon-Brookes, wife of Title Deeds regular Mike Cannon-Brookes.
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Rose Bay’s charms are not lost on billionaire Kie Chie Wong either. Corporate interests owned by Wong and his wife Ann Lim have purchased a five-bedroom house for $5.3 million, taking the couple’s prestige property spree of recent years to almost $30 million.
The Maroubra-based couple have done well from Andrew “Twiggy” Forrest’s Fortescue Metals: they started with a $1 million investment more than 20 years ago, and in 2021 their dividends alone earned them $333 million.
Still in Rose Bay, Tim Elliott, the head of mining investment at Phil King’s Regal hedge fund, and his wife Nonie have emerged as the $23 million buyers of the Rose Bay home of Goldman Sachs’ Zac Fletcher.
Fletcher built the contemporary digs a decade ago, and listed it with Ray White Double Bay’s Elliott Placks last year for $25 million amid plans for his own knock-down rebuild in Point Piper.
Elliott is already based in Rose Bay, having purchased a family home opposite the golf course in 2014 for $4.4 million. Expect to see it hit the market soon.
Liberal views
The Bayview residence that for decades was home to the late chairman of the Sydney Stock Exchange, political operative and philanthropist John Valder is being sold following the death of his widow Kay Valder.
Valder had only recently resigned as federal Liberal Party president when he and Kay purchased the 4390-square-metre property in 1988 for $1.465 million, although by 2004 he made headlines as more of a critic than leader of the party, accusing then-prime minister John Howard of being a war criminal, given his commitment to the war in Iraq.
The Valder family’s home is billed as a Colonial-style residence with pool, tennis court and some of the suburb’s best north-facing views, in the marketing by Belle Property’s Greg Griffin.
A guide of $7 million has been set ahead of a May 25 auction.
Darling designer digs
Interior designer Tamsin Johnson and Patrick Johnson, of bespoke tailor P. Johnson, by all accounts did well in 2020 when they snapped up the 1920s residence Kendall Lodge in Darling Point for a little more than $10 million.
It wasn’t that long since the first lockdown, the house had already been discounted from $12 million, and Tamsin could no doubt see plenty of scope to do what so many eastern suburbs home owners pay her to do.
Fast-forward three years and that renovation is done – documented for all to see in the May 2022 edition of Vogue Living – and Highland Property’s Bill Malouf is already taking buyers through it with a guide of more than $25 million.
The Johnsons are no doubt hoping that timing is again on their side given the current dearth of competing luxury homes for sale, which on the flip side won’t help them in their plans to trade up locally.
