THE ballroom apartment in historic Babworth House at Darling Point has been sold for $8 million, setting a record price for a unit without harbour views.
The grand 560-square-metre apartment that comes with a 390-square-metre garden was snapped up pre-auction by a Hong Kong-based expatriate who will rent it out until his return.
The two-storey apartment, offering the high life in a low-rise, initially sold off-the-plan in 2001 at $5.6 million when bought by the recruitment industry executive Phil Kerry and his wife, the Fox Sports presenter Ann-Maree Kerry, a 1984 Los Angeles Olympic Games gymnast.
With an eclectic mix of Edwardian, Art Nouveau and Federation styles, Babworth House was built costing £40,000 in 1915 for the retailer Sir Samuel Hordern, and his wife, Charlotte, daughter of the NSW premier Sir John See.
For most of the past five decades Babworth's 26-bedroom accommodation was used by the Sisters of Charity, but also as a location for two films, Kitty and the Bagman and Careful He Might Hear You.
The Kerrys' six-bedroom south-west corner apartment, with a big-house feel and a big-house price, comes with gentleman's smoking corner, ballroom and billiard room, heavily panelled in English oak, plus formal grounds.
"But it's not all old-world, as its state-of-the art European kitchen comes with a fishtank splashback," said the selling agent, Martin Maskin of Raine & Horne.
Babworth's five apartments - four in the two-storey house and another in its expanded cellar/servants quarters space - grossed $25.6 million for its developers, who paid $5.25 million for the house in 2000.
Honours for Sydney's highest priced unit belong to the broadcaster John Laws and his wife, Caroline, who spent $15 million in 2004 to extend their Woolloomooloo Wharf holding, which had cost $3 million in 2000.
