Comedian’s Ex-Home Cleared for Six-Level Mansion

A Sydney developer expects to start construction on a six-level luxury mansion on the city’s harbourfront later this year that, when finished, will rank among the country’s most expensive houses.

With estimated build costs of $18.6 million, the new four-bedroom home will go on a 1290sq m lot at Rose Bay that last changed hands for $45 million less than two years ago.

The former chief executive of Coverforce insurance brokerage, Jim Angelis, bought the property at 12 Tivoli Avenue—complete with Spanish Mission-style mansion—in September 2021.

As part of the approved development application, the Villa Florida—a 22-room residence designed and built in 1928 by prominent US-based architect E.W. Sankey—has been demolished.

Empire Project Management director Nathan Gallon said demolition on the existing building had started in December last year and was completed by March.

“We removed the building and we’re in design development for a construction certificate at the moment,” he said.

“All I can say is construction will start later in the year. These things take time at the moment given all the stuff that’s happening in the industry.”

The project will be a complex one, according to development monitor BCI Central. 

Documents lodged with Woollahra Municipal Council in August last year show the harbour-front property falls more than 27m from the street to the water.

Of the six levels to the new mansion, three of them will begin underground. Just a single storey will be visible at street level.

“The proposal is very unusual in its siting on what is effectively a cliff,” Town planners City Planning Works said in their filing.

▲ The 22-room Villa Florida—once owned by comedian Barry Humphries—was demolished this year. Source: CoreLogic.

“Combined with the irregular geometry of the site, the site topography does not easily fit the standard local environmental plan and development control plan models.

“Further complication is added by the siting of the additional floor space underground but open to the waterfront, as has been done in a few comparable locations such as Dumaresq Road, Rose Bay, Bay View Hill Road and New South Head Road.”

Plans call for a total 3200cu m to be excavated before construction.

“The extent of excavation is greater than normally permitted but the site is very unusual, and the excavation is justified to enhance the amenity of adjoining properties and minimise bulk and scale of the dwelling,” City Planning Works wrote.

Gallon said the engineering detail was being worked out.

“It’s a very steep site on the Sydney Harbour foreshore and there’s a lot of engineering detail that needs to be resolved in order to make sure that the structure, and the whole in the ground per se, is going to withstand all those forces from being on a steep site,” he said.

“It will be an amazing building once it’s done.”

The home will include four bedrooms, five bathrooms, casual and formal dining, a new pool and deck, golf area, gym and sauna, terraces, service kitchen, parking for two vehicles, a car lift as well as extensive landscaping.

The initial development application was refused by Woollahra Council in October last year but the Land and Environment Court later upheld an appeal by Empire Project Management.

That decision followed some design changes as well as a condition the site’s construction “will not have an adverse impact on the amenity or aesthetic appearance of the foreshore”.

Villa Florida was originally built for grazier Harold Coffill and stayed within the family until 1976.

Its most famous owner was comedian Barry Humphries, in the 1980s, who later sold it for $2.52 million. Humphries passed away in Sydney this year, aged 89, following complications from hip surgery.