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Shopping bag mogul secretly lists Rose Bay trophy home for $75m, buys something better
By Lucy Macken
As buyers with a spare $75 million or so were being quietly ushered through the Rose Bay trophy home of recycled shopping bag businessman Frank Qiang Geng and Juanjuan Zhao this week, it didn’t take a genius to figure out why they might be selling.
The beachfront residence designed by architect Bruce Stafford at Rose Bay is tipped to be but a stepping stone up the local home market for Geng to the recently sold Point Piper waterfront residence Rockleigh.
The $75 million view from Rose Bay’s beachfront house of businessman Frank Geng.Credit: Domain
Pillinger’s Brad Pillinger would not to be drawn on Geng’s reason for selling, but he has listed it with Sotheby’s Michael Pallier, which given the two agents rarely work hand in hand, was the first big clue as to where Geng is headed next.
While that’s not a definitive giveaway, a well-placed source has stepped in to confirm Geng’s purchase of Rockleigh, the long-held waterfront home of medico specialist Philippa Harvey-Sutton.
The Point Piper property Rockleigh sold recently for more than $80 million.Credit: James Brickwood
The sale price of Rockleigh remains a vague $80 million to $85 million, but at that level it still ranks as this year’s top trophy home sale to date.
Geng’s Rose Bay house is no slouch in the local trophy home stakes.
The six-bedroom, six-bathroom residence is set on the prime beachfront Dumaresq Reserve featuring living areas that open to an infinity pool and uninterrupted views to the Harbour Bridge. Among the special extras are a fire pit, billiard room, six-seater home cinema, home sauna and a spa.
The contemporary three-level house was commissioned by Skype early investor and founder of music downloader Kazaa, Kevin Bermeister and his wife Beverley, who sold it to Geng in 2014 for $26.9 million.
A year later Geng sold his historic Hunters Hill home Cleverton for $6.55 million.
Geng hasn’t just relied upon his previous real estate to fund his handsome homes. Geng was a professor of economics in Asia before he made his fortune in the innovative sustainable materials business, wholesaling recyclable and calico shopping bags, and later expanding the Intex business to include everything from coasters and bottle openers to portable coffee cups, and pens and notebooks.
Architect Bruce Stafford designed the Rose Bay house on behalf of former owners Beverley and Kevin Bermeister.Credit: Domain
Values on Rose Bay’s harbourfront have been recalibrated a few times over in the decade since Geng joined the neighbourhood.
Retailer Brett Blundy scored about $47 million in 2018 when he sold to James Packer’s money man Lawrence Myers, and in 2021 veteran stockbroker Brent Potts sold Villa Florida to Coverforce founder Jim Angelis, the latter of whom promptly lodged plans for an $18.6 million rebuild.
Also drafting plans for a new house on the beachfront is foreign exchange dealer Tony Collick, who paid $36.6 million to consolidate a house and block of apartments to create a single family home.
Hunters Hill high
Telecom entrepreneur Tony Hakim is tipped to have set a Hunters Hill house price record this week when he sold his non-waterfront residence ahead of next week’s scheduled auction.
The Hakim family home in Hunters Hill is set on 2000 square metres and has one of the suburb’s few tennis courts.
McGrath’s Tracey Dixon won’t reveal the result, but she had a guide of $18 million-plus, and a local source said it sold for closer to $20 million, far in excess of the previous $19 million high set by the Windermere estate when it was sold by China’s property magnate “Sam” Kuizhang Guo to pub baron Sean O’Hara.
The end of the peninsular keeps its own record tab, held by the Vailele mansion at $22.18 million since 2017.
Hakim, who made his money through the telephony bundling business National Telecoms Group, has owned the 2000 square metre property with one of the suburb’s few tennis courts since 2002, paying $4.4 million and renovating it to a design by Glenda Barnes.
The Woollahra house sold by Tiffany Tilley was listed for $4.9 million and sold for $4.6 million.Credit: Domain
Rich-lister bolthole
Rich list-er Fiona Tudor Brown has purchased another eastern suburbs’ bolthole, paying $4.6 million for the Woollahra home flip of socialite Tiffany Tilley.
Brown, who co-founded ASX-listed IT distributor Dicker Data in 1978 with her former husband David Dicker and ranked on this year’s AFR Rich List 200 with an estimated wealth of $752 million, is based in Mittagong, but also owns a $5 million terrace in Paddington she purchased in 2021.
Fiona Tudor Brown co-founded IT distributor Dicker Data in 1978.Credit:
Tilley did okay from the sale, despite having listed it with $4.9 million hopes last year before she relisted it recently with BlackDiamondz’ Courtney Wong and Maylin Liu. The house last traded two years ago for $3.32 million, and scored Marco Meneguzzi interiors since then.
Tilley is downsizing to a $3.58 million pad in Potts Point’s Rockwall Gardens.
Banking on Bilgola
The Bilgola Beach house known as Serpentine House has sold for $6.75 million.Credit: Domain
Banking boss Clive van Horen has followed up his recent appointment as chief of superannuation and wealth giant Colonial First State by buying a $6.75 million home on Bilgola Beach.
Clive van Horen took up the top job at Colonial First State early this year.Credit:
The designer digs, designed by architect Michael Muir and called Serpentine House, last traded in 2021 for $5.35 million, and is somewhat of a mini-sea change for van Horen, who has long been based in Gordon on the Upper North Shore.