Big punt looks good
Civil engineer’s expensive job of finishing Sovereign Islands mansion could pay off handsomely
RIC Rizzi, a Perth civil engineer who in 2013 swooped on an unfinished home that might well be the Gold Coast’s biggest, probably sports a wry smile when the subject of property prices on The Sovereign Islands comes up.
News a couple of months back that two Sovereign properties had come on to the market for in excess of $14 million appears to have vindicated his decision to put his hand up at a bank-ordered auction.
He bought a 3000sq m-plus house, 80 per cent complete and spanning four blocks looking north over the Broadwater, for $5.3 million.
The couple who had initiated the house had spent $9.44 million buying the land in 2005 and an estimated $12 million on construction.
Ric, son of a bricklayer, later bought a vacant lot next door for $1.195 million and in 2015 embarked on a finishing exercise.
He estimated it would cost him $3.5 million to complete the house, which he’s called Villa Vittoria, but the cost and the time taken have blown out.
It appears the total Rizzi outlay, by the time the mansion is completed late this year, might top $13 million, a figure that will include the extra lot and furnishings.
The upshot could be that Ric, who’s been project manager on the finishing work, have an asset worth way in excess of $20 million.
The land alone, going by latest sales on Knightsbridge Pde, appears to be worth more than $12 million. The couple that embarked on the mansion, Scott Tyne and Clare Marks, had put years of work into planning and building their dream house.
When the ANZ Bank took possession of it, the quality was well evident, in the form of triple-glazed windows with hand-beaten copper framing, exterior travertine pillars, bulky interior doors with aluminium running through them to prevent twisting, and foundations that would support a multistorey apartment building.
New owner Ric’s approach has been to stay true to the Tyne-Marks plans, with a few tweaks, right down to hiring the same builder and subcontractors.
The goal has been to end the day with a house that looks as though it’s been sitting on its site for 100 years.
There’s apparently been a laborious effort to “look old”, right down to bringing in limecould stone blocks from WA and buying a pallet of tiles that had sat at the rear of a shop for 30 years.
A broker in Germany is sourcing furniture from properties such as European chateaus.
The upshot, hopefully come Christmas, will be a six-bedroom, seven-bathroom mansion with a billiard room, cinema, wine cellar, 25-metre outdoor pool, and gymnasium with spa, chiller pool, steam room, and sauna.
Owner Ric is noncommittal as to whether he’ll be a seller but any would-be buyer will only have to knock on the door – the property deliberately has no roadside gates or fences.