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NSW treasurer takes time out from housing crisis to buy $4m house
By Lucy Macken
NSW Treasurer Daniel Mookhey handed down his second budget earlier this year, addressing the housing crisis by rolling out the biggest investment in public housing in the state’s history. Job done, he went home and started packing boxes ahead of his own home upgrade.
The Labor man, son of Indian migrants, has not only done well professionally since growing up in Merrylands, but he has also succeeded in the property stakes, judging by his recent purchase of one of Stanmore’s grandest residences.
Grasmere is the Victorian Italianate mansion recently purchased by Treasurer Daniel Mookhey and political adviser Tamsin Lloyd.Credit: Domain
Mookhey and his wife, political adviser Tamsin Lloyd, have paid $4.15 million for a Victorian Italianate mansion called Grasmere boasting 12 rooms set on about 700 square metres and with a “sweeping gated driveway”.
It is an impressive residence that means the couple’s kids no longer need to share a bedroom, nor even a lounge room, and it is a step up from the Enmore terrace the couple purchased for $1.29 million in 2015, a week after Mookhey was sworn in as a member of the upper house.
NSW Treasurer Daniel Mookhey and Tamsin Lloyd have swapped Enmore for Stanmore.Credit:
Title records show that in the 1880s, it was owned by Joseph Coates, then headmaster of Newington College and later headmaster of Sydney Boys High, but a century later it was being used as six flats on a subdivided block.
More recently it was billed “one of Stanmore’s landmark manor homes” in the CobdenHayson marketing by Jonathan Hammond. Its floorplan includes formal and informal living and dining rooms, a home office, a music room, five king-sized bedrooms, a cellar and a contemporary rear living area that was part of a major renovation a decade ago.
Mookhey and Lloyd, the latter deputy chief of staff to state environment minister Penny Sharpe, are not expected to sell their former Enmore home given it was recently leased for more than $1200 a week.
Grasmere scored a contemporary rear extension and renovation about a decade ago.Credit: Domain
Mookhey’s father died when the treasurer was just five. He was raised by his widowed mother and has made no secret of the fact his background means housing is an important issue to him.
The centrepiece of his June budget was a record $5.1 billion to build 8400 dwellings slated for public housing, half those for victim-survivors of domestic violence.
The sale of Grasmere ranks among the suburb’s top three house sales results, topped by the record $4.65 million set in April by Shelley Simpson, the founder of Mud homewares brand.
Discounting does it
Crossing the political spectrum, former NSW Liberal deputy leader Jillian Skinner and her husband Chris have sold their Cremorne home two years after they first put it up for sale.
The Federation house was bought by Jillian and Chris Skinner for $64,150 in 1976.Credit: Domain
There has been some discounting since the Federation house was first listed in 2022 for $5.5 million. Last year, it was returned to the market with a $5 million guide, which was soon after revised to $4.5 million before it was passed in at auction at $4.5 million.
Former NSW Liberal deputy leader and health minister Jillian Skinner retired from politics in 2017.Credit: Edwina Pickles
Croll’s Andrew Croll took back the listing in June with a $4.2 million to $4.4 million guide, just as Domain data revealed an 11 per cent jump in the suburb’s median house price.
Croll won’t reveal the price, but Pricefinder indicates a $4.2 million result. It’s not the hoped for $5.5 million, but it’s a good gain from the $64,150 the Skinners paid in 1976 from the late property legend Ian Hayson.
Heirs and debts
Kristie Ward, daughter of one-time rich lister and Primo Smallgoods co-founder John Hunt, listed her Northbridge trophy home this week in what could be a cautionary tale for heirs and heiresses everywhere.
The Northbridge home of Kristie Ward, of the Primo Smallgoods family, last traded for $21 million in 2017.Credit: Domain
To explain, Ward set a suburb record of $21 million in 2017 when she purchased the designer digs of Robert and Kelly Salteri, of the Transfield family.
Unbeknown at the time, Ward’s purchase and a renovation that followed was thanks to a loan from the family company, JWH Nominees, which is controlled by her dad, and her brother Bradley Hunt.
Such loan arrangements were lodged on title via a caveat earlier this year by JWH Nominees, as reported by the Financial Review’s Rear Window column.
Court orders extended the company’s claim on the property until June 3, at which point the caveat was lifted and the matter was dismissed.
Then on Thursday, Ward’s waterfront residence with private jetty and a pool sprung up on Domain.com.au for sale amid hopes of setting a new benchmark for the north shore’s housing market.
The five-bedroom, seven-bathroom residence is set on 3434 square metres of waterfront.Credit: Domain
New Sotheby’s recruit Alon Beran is yet to set a guide, but he expects it to sell in the $40 million to $50 million range, which should top the $42 million high set by Lavender Bay’s historic Idlemere mansion, if not pay off the debt to dad.
Brother Bradley in 2015 bought the Cremorne estate of property developer Bob Ell for $11.2 million.