Rags-to-riches story ends in $30 million house sale in Point Piper

PHOTO: Point Piper

Peter Placek escaped the Soviet occupation of Czechoslovakia in the 1960s only to arrive in Australia with virtually nothing, making ends meet by playing jazz at RSL clubs.

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The former rag trader-turned-importer has not done too badly since, with word this week he has sold his Point Piper waterfront house for about $30 million.

Placek’s rags-to-riches story was first profiled in the late 1980s in The Sydney Morning Herald, although his business interests are now focused on his kitchen and bathroom finishes business IDW Design.

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Records show Placek purchased the three-level house with four bedrooms, a pool and private jetty on prized Wolseley Crescent in 2008 for $10.5 million from International Publishing Group chief Philip Greader.

**Peter Placek arrived in Australia in the 1960s with virtually nothing and by the late 1980s had made his name as a successful ragtrader. Photo: Fairfax Media**

It was a trade-up at the time from his former Bellevue Hill home that sold in 2005 for $8.35 million (that house resold last year for just shy of $20 million).

Gag orders on Placek’s latest sale mean the exact price and buyer will be left to settlement, but sources say the deal was negotiated by The Agency’s Steven Chen, who was tight-lipped on the deal.

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Placek’s son and IDW Design co-director Martin Placek bought an apartment a few doors along on Lady Martins Beach last July for $4.73 million from magazine maven Deborah Thomas.

The eastern suburbs’ trophy home market has been in a cycle of self-inflicted starvation in recent months as potential vendors opt out of selling because they can’t find anything to buy.