Billionaire heiress buys $20m Double Bay waterfront
Neilson, the daughter and heiress of billionaire businesswoman and philanthropist Judith Neilson and her ex husband fund manager Kerry Neilson, had bought a crumbling warehouse known as The Pigeon Shed in Pine St for $3.1m with the help of her parents in 2012.
The 38-year-old, who owns The Vanguard in Newtown and was creative director for her mother's free music venue Phoenix Central Park until last year, then commissioned a transformation by MCK Architects of the 324sqm warehouse into a five-bedroom, four-bathroom residence.
Australia's most famous heirs and heiresses
Now listed with Shannan Whitney of BresicWhitney, it comes with an indoor pool, studio and gallery spaces.
The three-level residence that also features a lift appeared on realestate.com.au last Thursday but the real mystery had been where she's moving next.
A title search reveals she's the lucky owner of a historic sandstone waterfront mansion at 21 Gladswood Gardens, which exchanged for $20m in July via Michael Pallier of Sotheby's and has now settled in her name.
The waterfront had exchanged at $22m more than a year ago, but the sale fell through.
The five-bedroom estate on a 978sqm block, which was the coach house of the Gladswood Estate, has been owned by the MacMahon family since it was bought for $782,000 in 1983.
The sold sticker went up last May, and sources say the expat purchaser back then couldn't sell their Hong Kong property so couldn't proceed.
Enter Cohen Handler buyer's agent, Tom Penfold, who's scooped it up for Neilson.
'My client fell in love with it straight away and we secured it very quickly,' Penfold said at the time.
'She love the rawness and the potential.'
He said she would do a sympathetic reno — 'she's not going to go crazy' — and move in.
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