Dr Hugh Wirth AM estate properties in Deepdene sell for $7.025m
Three neighbouring Balwyn properties, part of the estate of animal welfare advocate, RSPCA president, ABC Radio resident vet and 1997 Victorian of the Year, Dr Hugh Wirth AM, have sold for a combined $7.025 million.
One purchaser picked up two of them: 185 Whitehorse Road and 1 May Street, on an 1856 square metre block, traded for $4.6m last October.
Leased to Balwyn Veterinary Surgery, it was at this site Dr Wirth established his practice in 1967 (a business he sold upon retiring in 2006).
A developer spent $2.45m on the third holding, 3 May Street, a single-storey residence on an 820 sqm plot, also seven months ago.
Fitzroys Chris Kombi and Ervin Niyaz marketed the Neighbourhood Residential zoned parcels which are in the exclusive Deepdene pocket of the already ritzy suburb, 10 kilometres east of Melbourne’s CBD.
Dr Wirth set up in Balwyn after starting his career three years earlier in Drouin, West Gippsland.
A member of the RSPCA board for 35 years and leader for a period from 1972, the rights campaigner was the first person outside of Europe to lead international organisation World Animal Protection (then known as World Society for the Protection of Animals).
In 1985, he was appointed a Member of the Order of Australia.
For more than 30 years nearly every Saturday he also appeared on ABC Radio as its resident vet.
The last of three publications, Doctor Hugh: My Life With Animals, was released in 2012.
