Brother and sister’s $40m pay day as Fortis Group snaps up site of family homes in Rose Bay
One of the family homes cost £13,500 in 1959, the other $2.35m in 2014 … now the site’s been sold for $40m to a developer who’s now planning to build a dozen luxury apartments.
Fortis Group director Charles Mellick confirmed the $40m purchase of 10-12 Ian St, Rose Bay — a 2000sqm site — to the Wentworth Courier this week.
“We’re planning 10 to 12 large apartments,” Mellick said.
“I’m on my way to New York now to meet with a Chicago-based designer who will be doing the interiors and MHNDU will do the exterior.
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“They’re going to be three-bedroom, 175sqm to 300sqm apartments, with beautiful views of Sydney Harbour.
“The views are going to be incredible and it’s just 80m to the shops, so downsizers will love them … I actually think this is the best spot in Rose Bay!”
Mellick expects the apartments will be start at about $12m and with the largest apartment in the $18m range.
“If all goes to plan, we’ll have the plans before council in eight weeks and hopefully start construction mid-year.”
It’s an amazing outcome for the Adamson family siblings, retired geologist Mark Adamson and his sister.
The sales agent, Raine and Horne Double Bay’s Alex Lyons, had had a $30m-$33m price guide. He had no comment about the sale when contacted.
Records show that Mark’s dad, the late Charles Adamson, had bought No.12 Ian St, Rose Bay for £13,500 in 1959, while their mum, the late Florence Adamson, bought No.10 for $2.35m in 2014.
“It had been the longtime home of Philippa Harvie, who the niece of Patterson, the poet most famous for ‘Waltzing Matilda’,” Mark told the Wentworth Courier at the start of the sales campaign.
“When [Harvie] had passed away, after my father had passed away, my mother expressed a strong desire to stay in the family home as long as she could.
“No.10 might have been sold to someone who was going to pull it down and rebuild, and my mother’s bedroom was right on the corner of our house.”
So rather than enduring years of construction next door from a likely developer, the family negotiated to buy it, and it’s been rented to the same tenant ever since.”
With Florence’s death last year, Mark and his sister had the job of selling both properties and, as Mark said, the sale of what’s now a very large block was “a good problem to have”.
Mellick also told the Wentworth Courier exclusively that he’d also recently snapped up another site at 1-3 Annandale St, Darling Point, in the $15m-$20m range.