IT TOOK eight real estate agencies, seven price drops and almost six years to sell but the former site of Moog Wine + Food has finally changed hands.
The Surry Hills terrace that was once a haunt for the likes of Bill Gates was bought at a bargain price by the chairman of Frasers Property Australia, Stanley Quek.
''As an entrepreneur, as a developer and as a property investor I saw it and said, 'Well that's value','' Dr Quek said.
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It incorporates a wine and tapas bar, a recording studio, a luxury one-bedroom apartment and a separate two-bedroom residence.
Three interested parties were at the auction in October but all fell short of the vendor bid of $3.8 million. Following his top bid of $3.6 million Dr Quek was invited to submit another offer and was able to snag the property just before Christmas for $3,625,000.
The annual rate of appreciation was just 1.46 per cent since its purchase in 1999 for $3.3 million.
As the Herald reported in July 2005, the former owners, Simon and Susanah Page, were initially seeking more than $8 million.
The couple, originally from New Zealand, at one time ran some of Sydney's flashiest nightclubs, including Sublime and Home.
The company that owned the site, CF & SP, of which Susanah Page is listed as a director and secretary and Simon Page a former director and secretary, was placed in receivership last year.
The selling agent, Brian McInally, of Colliers International, said that ''as it was a receivers sale it was really governed by the valuation. The market, however, was not meeting the valuation. It had to be a very specific type of buyer.
''Everyone that came through had a completely different idea to the next person about what they wanted to do with it,'' he said.
''Restaurateurs wanted to take it over, investors wanted to slice it up even more into one bedroom apartments … Stanley, however had some fantastic ideas.''
"It's a mix-use, commercial, restaurant and part residential," Dr Quek said.
The restaurant Emmilou, which succeeded Moog Wine + Food, will be offered more space and Dr Quek's investment firm, Greencliff Realty, will open up a shopfront.
The accommodation at the rear, which once was operated as a boutique hotel, will be reconfigured and leased out as apartments.
