Multi-millionaire businessman buys dilapidated shop

PHOTO: 63 Fitzwilliam St, Vaucluse

The old shop on a waterfront block was so dilapidated there were fears it would fall over before it could be sold — but last night it fetched an incredible price at auction.

The double-storey building on 588sqm block long owned by the Goldberg family at 63 Fitzwilliam Rd sold for a whopping $17.1m at the Ray White Double Bay auction room.

Sources at the auction recognised the winning bidder as the multi-millionaire businessman Victor Comino, known to have been on the lookout for a harbourfront block to build a mansion for one of his three daughters.

Vaucluse home now Australia’s sixth most expensive after $62 million sale

Comino and his wife, Chrissy, bought the $48m estate Sutherland Park, long held by the family of the late Sir William and Lady Tyree, in the Southern Highlands and a $25m doer-upper on the Watsons Bay beachfront last year.

Ahead of last night’s auction of the old Vaucluse shop, agents Craig Pontey and Violet Farebrother had been guiding $13m and auctioneer James Keenan called it onto the market at $15.2m.