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The view from Linday Fox’s Mount Macedon estate.
Caroline Frykberg, the widow of the late sports broadcasting legend Ian Frykberg, has sold their Port Douglas retreat for $5.1 million. Perched high on the most easterly point of Flagstaff Hill, the home offers views of the Coral Sea, Four Mile Beach and the rainforest. The 931sq m Murphy Street parcel comes with a five bedroom residence. It was bought for $2m in 2001 from Steve Vizard. The Frykbergs had previously owned next door, a penthouse bought in 1997 for $640,000 and sold in 2003 at $1m. The family also holds an apartment in far north Queensland resort Beach Club, which is for sale at $1.1m through estate agent Tony McGrath. Frykers, as he was known, was a formidable force in the media game, the founding executive producer of Today in 1982. He went on to broker deals for the NRL, AFL and English Premier League. The home sold to Melbourne’s Tony Nunan, the former national president of the Pharmaceutical Society of Australia, and his wife Genevieve.
Foxes take over Macedon estate
The Fox trucking family has secured Penola, one of Mount Macedon’s historic 19th century garden estates. Linfox executive chairman Peter Fox paid $2.85m for the 4ha garden estate, which William Guilfoyle, creator of the Melbourne Botanic Gardens, helped establish for the family. The hillside residence, sold through Lindsay Hill Real Estate, comes with 20 rooms underneath a striking tower with views to Melbourne. There’s eight bedrooms, two grand living rooms, a rare original billiards room along with the requisite eight open fireplaces. The timber teak-lining was shipped in from India. The terraced gardens have stone walls, ponds and a waterfall. There’s also a lawn tennis court where Norman Brookes played before becoming the first Australian to win Wimbledon in 1907. It was the retreat of his uncle, Herbert Brookes.
Federer retreat set for sale
The Mount Eliza home that Roger Federer stayed in during the Australian Open has been listed for $2.5m-plus. Federer rented the Mornington Peninsula property for about $1800 a week during the grand slam event in Melbourne. Listed through NicholasLynch Mornington agent Vicki Sayers, the five-bedroom home has many luxury features, but a tennis court isn’t one of them. It does offer direct access to the Ranelagh Club, which has six floodlit mod-grass courts. Set on 1270sq m with views across the bay to the city skyline, the Rosserdale Crescent house was built in 2006 after the block cost $425,000 in 2001.
The Noosa good oil
And don’t say I told you but the newly installed Caltex chairman Greig Gailey, the former chief executive of mining giant Zinifex, and his sociologist wife Geraldine Lazarus, have bought a Noosaville holiday home. The Toorak couple have spent $2.975m on a four-bedroom waterfront marketed as combining classical elegance and the finest of cosmopolitan finishes. It has been on the market since 2014, when offered at $3.395m.