Real estate Sydney: Top bookies beach house listed in sale gamble

A tightly held Coogee house built in the 1940s by prominent bookie Tom Powell has been listed.

The two-level home at 79 Beach St last traded when the local Hargraves pharmacy family bought it in 1967 for $40,000.

It is set for auction on November 11 through Kiki Bermudez and Rhys Chaplin, of Raine & Horne Unlimited, with a $7m price guide.

Set on 692 sqm, the four-bedroom, three-bathroom house features a games room with original cocktail bar.

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With alfresco terraces and views to the north and south, it secured 744 page views on its first day on realestate.com.au.

The home was built after Powell and his wife, Leta, paid £900 for the land in 1940.

They sold it for £10,500 in 1950 to two-time Melbourne Cup-winning jockey Billy Cook and his wife, Rae Fisher, an actor who performed in Frank Thring’s screen version of The Sentimental Bloke.

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The late racing journalist Bill Whittaker once recalled Cook as the “most immaculate ride to don racing colours in Sydney”.

Cook who rode his first winner, Pigeon Pie, at Canterbury in 1925, won the 1929 Sydney Cup, riding Crucis, followed by the 1930 Caulfield Cup, and the Doomben Newmarket in 1937.

He won the Melbourne Cup on Skipton in 1941 and on Rainbird in 1945.

Cook won the Sydney jockeys’ premiership six times between 1931 and 1947, which included a then-record-breaking 126 metropolitan winners in the 1939-40 season.

Cook also enjoyed success in London between 1949 and 1951, where he was invited to ride for King George VI.

Powell was at Ascot in 1950 when Sunday Telegraph turf journalist Cliff Graves suggested he was “garbed in clothing he’d never worn before in top hat, frock coats, striped trousers, double-breasted vests, cravats, and shiny patent-leather shoes”.

According to PropTrack, the median house price in Coogee is $3.43m. That’s down 5.1 per cent over the past 12 months.

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Originally published as Top bookie’s beach house listed in sale gamble

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