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The Australian property price record has been broken by the low-key sale of a Melbourne mansion for about $150 million.
Built in 1867, the two-storey Italianate mansion boasts 20 rooms, extensive gardens, a tennis court, a pool and a cabana.
The property was sold by billionaire property developer Paul Little and his businesswoman wife Jane Hansen, the chancellor of the University of Melbourne.
Australia’s previous property record was held by two properties in Sydney’s eastern suburbs – Elaine and Uig Lodge – which both sold for $130 million.
The couple bought the home in 2002 for $14.5 million, and it is understood they completed a major refurbishment.
Coonac was originally built for VIctorian businessman and pastoralist Robert Bruce Ronald, according to the Victorian Heritage Council.
The suburbs where house prices have doubled in less than four years
“It is architecturally interesting for forming a link between the restrained style of the earlier Italianate residences and the extravagant boom-style mansions of the 1880’s,” it says.
The property became a Commonwealth rehabilitation centre in 1948, and continued in that role until the 1980s.
