More Legal Woes For Hermes' Boss

Gary Baker

Karin

They were financially devastated by the economic meltdown when their property empire went bust.
Now Sydney's high profile socialites Karin Upton Baker, the Managing Director of the fashion label Hermes and her husband Gary Baker have been summonsed to appear in court.

Troubles began for the pair when they failed to purchase every apartment in a Bondi block with spectacular views over the beach. They had planned to turn the 1920's style flats into luxury condominiums. As property values rocketed,  the remaining tenants demanded multi-million dollar prices for their unconverted flats directly opposite the uber smart Bondi Icebergs restaurant, favourite watering hole of the likes of Oprah Winfrey and Paris Hilton.

Elizabeth Bay Duplex

 The liquidator of Baker's company Montpelier seized the block to re-pay finance companies but some of the flats have been selling for up to two million dollars less than the Bakers paid for them. Now that liquidator has summonsed both to appear in the Supreme Court in February 2011.

Karin is battling to remain in her sumptuous Elizabeth Bay duplex that has hosted some of Sydney smartest parties for celebrities like Giorgio Armani and Elle McPherson. The pair owe $18M to the finance company Perpetual and Challenger Managed Investments who are trying to evict them from the house before it is sold by private treaty.

gone!

The pair have already auctioned  their fleet of sleek black cars that were housed in the heated garage of the duplex that boasts a turntable and an elevator into the living area.

Amongst them was Karin's favourite  vintage Pagoda style Mercedes along with a Bentley Continental and a Rolls Royce Phantom all with distinctive XXX number plates.

Bigger Than Elton John's Christies Sale

After finally departing the Byron Bay mansion, Cedar Springs (left) in Possum Creek, built by actor Paul Hogan, British born banker Duncan Mount (right) and his horse mad wife Sally are auctioning off their fabulous collection of antiques at Shapiro's Auction gallery in Queen Street Woollahra on October 26th.

Hogan built the house for his 1990 wedding to actress and Crocodile Dundee co-star Linda Kozlowski, However he rarely visited the property and it was on the market for 10 years before the Mounts moved into the 25 room palace.

The Mounts have taken up temporary residence in a $3.5M penthouse in Bellevue Hill, built by would be property developer Gary Baker who has fallen on hard-times with the collapse of his property empire. Baker and his wife Karin Upton Baker, boss of Hermes were neighbours of the Mounts in Sydney.

Last year the Mounts began to sub-divide Possum Creek with it's hundreds of rolling acres of prime land and forests that back onto the uber resort of Byron. Each of the plots sold for $2M as the couple prepared to enter the Sydney social scene again.

The furniture collection was housed in Byron Bay and the couple's equestrian centre on the northern beaches at Ingleside which they sold for $7.3M earlier this year. The remainder of the Possum Creek property with Cedar Springs is priced at $7.9M.

Emigrating from Hong Kong in 1996, Duncan and Sally paid $15M for the Spanish style mansion Boomerang in Elizabeth Bay, selling six years later for $20.5M . The glamorous pair were a regular sight around the Eastern Suburbs as they ferried their kids to school in a Bentley Continental convertible.

The Mounts threw some memorable parties at Boomerang including one for Jennifer Lopez.
The house was also featured in the film Mission Impossible 2 and Tom Cruise offered to buy the house from the Mounts as his Sydney base for he and then wife Nicole Kidman.

Duncan mentioned over drinks to the Shuttle one night that he was slightly miffed that Cruise's film crew clambered through Boomerang for 2 weeks and although Tom promised him an invite to the movie's premiere-the invitation never arrived.

Auctioneer Andrew Shapiro says : ''This is the biggest collection that has ever come on the market, and it is all museum-quality,'' ''It's even bigger than the Elton John collection which sold at Christies in 2003.''

Amongst the 250 lots there are designs by modern artists like Andre Dubreuil, Mark Brazier-Jones and Scott Cunningham with works cast in bronze, finished in ornamental glass plus paintings and a range of traditional antiques, mainly French, Italian and English from the 18th and 19th centuries. The collection is estimated to sell for about $500,000.

You can view and drool over the pieces at the Shapiro's on-line catalogue here.

Meanwhile the woes of the Mount's close former neighbours, Gary and Karin Upton Baker continue as around the same time as the Mount Collection sale, their beautiful Elizabeth Bay duplex which is directly opposite Boomerang goes up for auction.

The scene for parties for the likes of Giorgio Armani and
Elle McPherson, the property has a 3 car garage with a turn table-now empty. The Upton Baker's Bentley and Rolls Royce Phantom having been sold to satisfy creditors.


Boomerang which featured in Mission Impossible 2

exclusive-Mel's fire sale

Mel & Bruce Davey

What is behind Mel Gibson's disposal of so many properties ?.

He has sold off his New York house and a beach house in Malibu is on the market.

Now there is a rumour from a reliable source that Mel's partner in Icon Films, Bruce Davey may be putting Craigend  up for sale. Craigend in Point Piper is one of the elite suburb's most iconic properties with a commanding view of the harbour.

Davey and Gibson purchased Craigend  in 2001 for $16M and announced it was to be the headquarters of their burgeoning film production company Icon which has produced 3 box office success- Apocaypto, The Passion of Christ and. Braveheart. These 3 films pushed Mel into billionaire status and has made him one of the richest of Hollywood stars. The 2 producers announced last year that Icon was going into a production hiatus.

Craigend

Tales of the demise of Mel's career are of course greatly exaggerated. As an actor/director who has total control over his career, Mel calls the shots. But he has taken a thumping on property prices as he sells up just at the wrong time. The Sydney market has also gone quiet for high end properties.

As we exclusively reported earlier actor Russell Crowe and wife Danielle Spencer viewed Altona, on the market for $45.5M but owners Deke & Eve Miskin have rejected an offer from Crowe  of $36M. It's doubtful the Miskins will get their asking price in today's market.

It's a buyer's market. What has spooked Mel ?

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While Gibson and Crowe can play the property market with ease, things go from bad to worse for budding property developer Gary Baker and his wife, Chanel boss Karin Upton Baker as their property empire collapses under a sea of debt.

The Bakers are heavy duty social scene members but have gone quiet recently with a Supreme Court battle over money lenders and loans on their sumptuous pride of joy, an Elizabeth Bay duplex that has been the locale of many parties for visiting celebrities.
The duplex has a 3 car garage with a turntable that housed their series of black autos with XXX number plates- a Rolls Phantom, a Bentley Continental and a vintage pagoda style Mercedes. The Merc is regularly put up for sale and withdrawn-it's Karin's favourite car and she is finding it hard to part with.

Now it seems Gary is finding it hard to part with some of the properties that have been his financial downfall. After a finance company took hold of 3 Bondi Beach apartments that were once owned by the late singer Peter Allen, an auction on the weekend of one of his Bellevue Hill apartments saw Baker hovering around the auction, pulling funny faces at prospective buyers and generally acting slightly odd.

Gary is also said to have photographed a member of the press who had been "stalking him for 20 years".