Toorak mansion sold for record price
Former Toll Group managing director and Essendon Football Club chairman, Paul Little, and his wife, ex-investment banker Jane Hansen, are understood to have quietly sold Toorak’s landmark Coonac.
The pair are speculated to be collecting c$115 million – a Victorian record – from the deal.
As well as the c1867 seven bedroom Italianate dwelling at 65 Clendon Road (Google Street View image, top) the two bought for $14.5m in 2002, the estate is believed to include a neighbouring Prairie style home penned by Walter Burley Griffin accessed from Stonehaven Court – which cost $2.61m five years later.
All up the offering could spread c1.2 hectares.
The buyer is as yet undisclosed. Kay & Burton is understood to be the marketing agency.
Mr Little and Ms Hansen are expected to downsize to the historic Simonds Hall, also known as Goodrest, on Toorak Road West, South Yarra, for which they paid $19.25m to the the Christ Church Grammar School in 2018 and have been renovating.
Like Coonac, Simonds Hall is Italianate – but built in 1885.
National record?
Built for pastoralist Robert Ronald, Coonac is the oldest surviving mansion in an original plot from the local Crown allotment – sold in 1849.
Between 1948-1986, it operated as a federal rehabilitation centre.
Developer Livio Cellante was responsible for a major renovation in the late 1980s when it traded to Spotless Services boss, Bryan Blythe, then Mr Little and Ms Hansen – reportedly on a condition the land was not subdivided (story continues below).
With over 20 rooms and a tennis court, it has over 200 metres Clendon Rd frontage.
The price could exceed $115m, according to agency sources.
The state residential record set in mid-2022 when stake.com founder Ed Craven outlaid $80.88m ex-GST for a St Georges Rd block in the suburb, now making way for a landmark contemporary dwelling penned by Paul Conrad Architects (which designed the billionaire’s existing home a little further north, on the corner of Orrong and St Georges roads).
It would also surpass the value of Cranlana, again on Clendon Rd, which the Myer family has been trying to sell since September for c$95m-plus.
Unlike Cranlana, Coonac is fully renovated.
The highest price paid for an Australian residence – $130m – was in late 2022 by Atlassian co-founder, Scott Farquhar and his wife, Kim, for Point Piper’s Uig Lodge.
That record could be broken if Wingadal, in Point Piper too, sells for its c$200m-plus guide.
That dwelling has been on the market 10 months.
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