Yet another blow for the uber-wealthy owner of $26million Sydney mansion that sparked a years-long legal feud
The opulent, Spanish-style home on Tivoli Avenue in Rose Bay, known as Villa Biscaya, has featured on Married At First Sight, The Bachelor and The Voice.
But more recently, it has been the subject of multiple legal feuds involving its owner, David Waterhouse, an estranged member of the Waterhouse bookmaker family.
Mr Waterhouse sold the property in 2023 for $26million to Aston Martin-driving investment banker Michael Rothner, of private equity firm Ashe Morgan.
Mr Rothner moved into the property in January, but settlement has not concluded.
It was a tidy profit for the ex-bookmaker, who purchased the home for $10.5million in 2020, pocketing more than double what he paid for it.
For all the tranquility the harbourside mansion may offer, it continues to be tainted by an ongoing legal battle relating to Mr Waterhouse's plans to transform its street-level garage into a 'self-contained dwelling'.
Mr Waterhouse sought to modify a development approval obtained by a previous owner in 2007 for works to the garage which were ultimately not carried out.
Woollahra Council approved the application but things took a turn when the owner of a neighbouring property, Mincong Huang, opposed the proposal.
His lawyer Graham McKee wrote to the council, arguing the new works were substantially different to those sanctioned by the initial development approval.
He claimed the new works would increase the 'apparent visual bulk and locate more of the development hard of the boundary of our client's property'.
The lengthy legal battle concluded on Friday, when Justice Sarah Pritchard of the Land and Environment Court ruled the works could not proceed.
Justice Pritchard decided the 2007 development approval could not be relied upon by Mr Waterhouse as it had lapsed in June 2012.
While the decision may have brought closure to the feuding millionaires, it's only the latest in a string of legal challenges pertaining to the block.
Last year, Mr Waterhouse launched proceedings against Mr Rothner's ex-wife who he accused of cutting down trees on a neighbouring property.
Both Mr Rothner and his ex-wife have denied the claims.
Mr Rothner is countersuing and seeking damages, accusing Mr Waterhouse of refusing to sign off on development applications he claims have delayed renovations.
The matter is listed for a directions hearing before Justice Pike of the Supreme Court on July 18.
In 2019, Mr Waterhouse feuded with his neighbours at a $3.5million apartment in Darling Point, arguing their 'yapping' cavoodle, Fifi, was defecating on the harbourfront lawn.
His neighbour, Fay Cohen, the wife of master magician 'Black Jack' Garry Cohen, applied for an apprehended violence order against Mr Waterhouse.
The AVO was dismissed by a magistrate in September 2019.
Two years before that, he lost a separate court battle over the height of trees planted at the colonial-era manor in Elizabeth Bay he shared with his then-wife, Janette.
Mr Waterhouse agreed to trim the cypress trees to within 40cm of the garage roof's height after his neighbour insisted her view of the harbour had been impacted.
Acting Commissioner of the Land and Environment Court David Galwey sided with the neighbour, ruling the tree needed to be pruned at least once a year.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
The Guardian
an hour ago
- The Guardian
What Kept You? by Raaza Jamshed review – an extraordinary debut full of ritual and poetry
What Kept You opens in death: fires are raging through the Sydney hills, where Jahan lives with her husband, Ali. The revelation that she is grieving her nani's death follows shortly afterwards and, a beat later, we learn she has recently suffered a miscarriage. In the early pages of her extraordinary debut, Raaza Jamshed warns the reader this is not a story of clean endings and tidy miracles. This is a novel full of ritual and poetry. A type of witchcraft, and of healing. 'Perhaps, that's what I'm trying to do here – to build a staircase out of words, to climb towards you to the sky or descend into the grave and lie down beside you,' Jahan writes of her nani. This is a novel that sits comfortably in the grey areas between the literal and the figurative; between overcoming grief and being overcome by it. It exists between two worlds – not unlike Jahan herself, who grew up in Pakistan, raised by her nani, before fleeing, as a young adult, to Sydney. In Pakistan, Jahan's nani kept a watchful eye on her, mapping out the shadowy motivations of the world around them through story and superstition. But as an adolescent, Jahan begins to rebel against the stories she has been told, wanting, as all young people do, to find her own narrative, and her defiance brings her closer to danger. Her recollections start to form a second narrative: we begin to learn the reason she couldn't stay in Pakistan, and the night she did something that has haunted her in the years since. Jahan tries to find herself between the stories of her mother, who believed in the predictable arcs of conventional romance, and those of her nani, who spoke of dark things hiding in the shadows. She struggles to identify with either. This disconnect is amplified by her life in Australia, a country where she both belongs and doesn't, where she has found a friend and a husband who accept her but never seem to fully understand her. There's a sense that everyone in this story holds themselves at arm's-length from each other, preventing true intimacies, although their relationships are underpinned by genuine care and concern. Sign up for our rundown of must-reads, pop culture and tips for the weekend, every Saturday morning In first-person narration, Jahan addresses her nani throughout. Early on, a facilitator at a grief circle tells her to write for 14 days to a person with whom she has unfinished business: 'You write and write and write. And when you're done, you don't back-read the letter. You burn it.' And even though this seems to fly in the face of her nani's belief in the power of stories spoken aloud and shared, the idea takes root in Jahan. There is a sense across the novel's 15 chapters that we are reading her response to the writing assignment, as she processes the unfinished business she had hoped to leave in Pakistan; the business that keeps her from returning to visit her nani, even upon her death. Alternating between her recollection of the past and the immediate crisis in the present, these chapters are in part a confession and in part Jahan's attempt to gain control over her own story. Jamshed peppers her text with Urdu and Arabic phrases. She leans into the slippage of words, delighting in the poetry and double meanings found in translation. For example, Shamshad (nani's name) 'implicates itself in the English 'shame' in the first half but swiftly escapes it in the Urdu 'happiness' of the second'. The pleasure for the reader is twofold: Jamshed's expression is a joy to read, treading carefully between poetry and prose; and thematically, the careful unpacking of words and meaning adds complexity, indirectly critiquing the loss of identity and language that occurs through the flattening process of western colonisation. Sign up to Saved for Later Catch up on the fun stuff with Guardian Australia's culture and lifestyle rundown of pop culture, trends and tips after newsletter promotion Towards the end of the novel, as the fires close in around her and Jahan nears the climax of her recollection of the past, she picks through the half lies and truths that she has told herself over the years. Finally, she lands on this: 'All I wanted to be was a girl who was not afraid.' Has she succeeded? In some ways, she has outrun the fears that kept her in place throughout her adolescence, but there is a sense that these have been replaced by something just as dark and unforgiving. What Kept You? is tightly crafted and rich in poetic metaphor, but the real satisfaction for a reader lies in its complex portrayal of grief and growing up. By rejecting either of the fixed narratives that Jahan's matriarchs have prescribed her, Jamshed imagines a space in which grief and hope might coexist. Ultimately, her question is not how to outwit fate, but how to make peace with uncertainty. What Kept You by Raaza Jamshed is out now through Giramondo ($32.95)
Daily Mail
an hour ago
- Daily Mail
Sarah Michelle Gellar dishes on her shock I Know What You Did Last Summer cameo
Sarah Michelle Gellar has revealed if she is in I Know What You Did Last Summer redo. On Thursday the 48-year-old blonde came clean about her participation that stars her husband Freddie Prinze Jr. Turns out the Buffy The Vampire Slayer did indeed shoot scenes for the highly anticipated reboot. 'Spoiler alert ‼️ Helen Shivers is still dead,' Gellar began her caption. 'When anyone asked me if I was going to be in the new @ikwydlsmovie I never lied. I always answered 'I am dead,'' noted the Hollywood veteran. 'And honestly I didn't see how I could be in the movie until @jennkaytin and @samlansky pitched me that crazy dream sequence with @madelyncline I still can't believe we were able to keep is a secret.' Gellar finished with: 'Long live dead Helen Shivers the og Croaker Queen.' Her pal Lisa Rinna commented: 'Once a queen, always a queen, honey.' Heather Graham hit the like button. Geller and Prinze, 49, met on the set of 1999's I Know What You Did Last Summer. The action star revealed on social media in November 2024 that she was with Prinze in Australia for production on the fright flick. Geller's Helen Shivers was killed in the 90s film. Prinze, 49, reprises his role as Ray Bronson and Jennifer Love Hewitt, 46, returns as Julie James. Geller also admitted the long awaited Buffy the Vampire Slayer reboot was also in the works, but said she wasn't allowed to talk about any details. 'We won't do it until we know we're 100-percent ready and we're confident that we are giving you something that the audience is asking for, that's also original in its own right.' The rebooted Buffy will make it to the small screen sometime in 2026. The new I Know What You Did Last Summer debuted in theaters July 18. Meanwhile, Hewitt's return to I Know What You Did Last Summer came down to a deep 'love' of the horror franchise. The 45-year-old actress is reprising her role as Julie James nearly 30 years after first appearing in the iconic teen slasher, and has now credited the new film's creative team with bringing the franchise back with a lot of heart. She told Variety of director Jennifer Kaytin Robinson and co-writer Sam Lansky: 'What was very apparent from the word 'Go' is how much both of them loved the original movie. 'I feel like, if you're going to go back and make something new but pay homage to an original, you have to love it. You have to understand it. 'So, I was just blown away and it meant a lot to me.' The new instalment, set for release in 2025, follows a fresh group of teenagers in Southport, North Carolina, who are stalked by a copycat killer after a deadly accident. Jennifer's character Julie is contacted by the young group and asked for help – drawing her and fellow survivor Ray Bronson, played by Prinze Jr., back into the chaos of their past. Jennifer last played Julie in the 1998 sequel I Still Know What You Did Last Summer. She was not involved in the 2006 direct-to-video follow-up or the 2021 reboot series. Kaytin and Sam offered a different approach, directly continuing the storyline of the original 1997 film. The creative team behind the project involved Jennifer in shaping Julie's character in the present day – a trauma expert and professor, recently divorced from Ray and determined never to return to Southport. The actress added: 'They allowed space for me to know her better than anyone, which was so kind because they didn't have to do that. 'I felt very seen as somebody who had created her the first time.' Julie plays a major role in the second and third acts of the film, mentoring Ava = played by Chase Sui Wonders – and helps to unmask two killers. The film also brings back Brandy Norwood as Karla, Julie's college roommate from I Still Know, in a surprise credits scene teasing yet another chapter in the series.
Daily Mail
an hour ago
- Daily Mail
House price DROP imminent across all of America: Sales collapse at highest rate on record... with these cities at epicenter
Buyers are walking away from home purchases in record numbers, causing complete chaos in the US housing market. In June, over 57,000 home sales across the country were abruptly canceled, equaling a staggering 14.9 percent of homes that went under contract, according to a report from Redfin.
