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Newly minted billionaire and chair of Tesla Robyn Denholm has smashed Sydney’s north shore apartment record books, buying a $27.5 million penthouse in Cremorne Point.
The whole-floor spread in The Ritz building on a waterfront reserve is not only the state’s highest apartment sale north of the Harbour Bridge, but outside the CBD tower market where the records are $60 million for the established “Boyd penthouse” and James Packer’s $72 million off-the-plan purchase in Crown’s One Barangaroo.
The seven-bedroom penthouse in Cremorne Point settled to Robyn Denholm this week.Credit:Domain
Denholm’s newly acquired spread is a seven-bedroom apartment with garaging for six cars and additional rooftop living space set atop a converted former boarding house on Milson Road.
Before it settled to Denholm this week, the penthouse was owned by developer Ken Stevens, who declined to comment on the sale, instead asking that any inquiries go to Forbes Global Properties’ Ken Jacobs or buyer’s agent Steve Smith, of SydneySlice.
Despite no comment from either agent, settlement records show a 240 per cent gain since Stevens bought it in late 2011 for $8.1 million.
Robyn Denholm has been chair of electric car making giant Tesla since 2018.Credit:Alex Ellinghausen
Denholm, who started her career in the automotive industry pumping petrol at her parents’ service station in Milperra, is up-grading from a house in nearby Waverton she bought for $2.5 million in 2003.
Denholm left her senior executive role at Telstra in 2018 to take up the chair of Tesla after company founder Elon Musk stepped down.
Her personal stocks have soared in recent years in line with that of the electric car maker. She made her debut on the AFR Rich List 200 in 2021 and rose to billionaire status on this year’s list with an estimated wealth of $1.18 billion thanks in large part to her stock options.
In 2020, she bought a beachfront weekender in Whale Beach for $6.25 million.
Denholm’s new digs is one of eight in the landmark block that was built in 1913 as a luxury hotel but was rundown and used as a boarding house in the 1980s when purchased by developer Simon Symond, brother of Aussie Home Loans founder John Symond.
Symond’s development company North East Developments went into receivership in 2008 and his penthouse sold by the mortgagee a few weeks before Christmas in 2011.
The seven-bedroom apartment last traded in late 2011 when sold mortgagee-in-possession for $8.1 million.Credit:Domain
It isn’t the first apartment record to Stevens’ name. Stevens developed the boutique block of four apartments in McMahons Point known as La Corniche, which secured a slew of local records including his $8.45 million sale in 2002.
Denholm’s purchase tops the north shore apartment record by $6.5 million, last set at $21 million when private equity veteran Peter Wiggs bought into the Bradfield building in McMahons Point in 2020.
Denholm was yet to respond to queries at the time of publication.
Sydney-based technology industry leaders have form when it comes to resetting local property records. Most famously, co-founders of software giant Atlassian, Mike Cannon-Brookes and Scott Farquhar, hold house price records for their respective $100 million and $71 million purchases in Point Piper.
Fellow billionaire Richard White, founder of software giant Wisetech, set a Palm Beach record of $27.5 million earlier this year when he bought a house on the hilltop.
AirTrunk founder Robin Khuda is building arguably Mosman’s most expensive house after he bought neighbouring houses for $45 million and lodged plans for a new house across the site at a cost of $14 million.
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