Keeping Up With The Joneses

Kerry Jones' circle of  friends is rapidly widening if the celebrations at her 57 room Darling Point mansion Swifts are anything to go by.

Shuttlers may recall we have written before about the parties, antique fairs, conferences, product launches and charity fundraisers that have been happening at the rate of two a week at the 3.5 hectare property in the suburb.

On Wednesday Fox International threw a roaring bash with former Beverley Hills 90210 star Jason Priestly as the guest of honour to celebrate the launch of his new series Call Me Fritz that airs on Fox's FX channel later this year. 150 guests rolled up to the house where they found roulette and backgammon tables, a supply of cigars from a humidifier, a whisky sampling bar and plenty of cocktails and champagne.

The Shuttle's spy disguised as a Darling Point senior citizen reports the noise was deafening especially when Priestly took to the microphone and appeared to scream for a full five minutes at the top of his lungs.
 Kerry Jones has denied the parties are commercial events and says they are functions held for 'friends' including two wedding receptions last month.

Even more disturbing was an odd event held last weekend and our spy dusted of her Box Brownie and supplied these snaps taken from her bedroom window on the 11th floor of a neighbouring block of apartments that overlooks Swifts gardens.

" I don't know what was going on " says our pensioner" but the guests appeared to be firing guns at each other and then police arrived to round them up and lay them handcuffed on the ground. I'm told it was some sort of game but the fake gunshots scared the hell out of my cat who disappeared into a  wardrobe for 2 hours and the racket went on all day"

Kerry Jones, the daughter of nursing home tsar Doug Moran (both left) who lives at Swifts with her extended family has called the claims that the house is operating as a defacto reception centre as "mischievous" but that has enraged the already seething residents of the genteel suburb who in a flurry of letters to the local Wentworth Courier newspaper demanded Jones retract the statement.

Another who wishes to remain anonymous but lives beside Swifts said " she must think we are stupid if she thinks we believe all these people attending parties are friends. I've counted over 2000 guests in the last 3 months".

And indeed Mrs Jones has claimed the party for Jason Priestley and Fox International was a “private party” for her friend, Fox International Channels managing director Karin Simoncini.

On Tuesday at the launch of the Australian Fashion Walk of Style in Oxford Street, the Shuttle button-holed a Woollahra councillor who refused to comment on the resident's claims but did say "it's all coming to a head".

Now it seems the Jason Priestly party was the last straw and on Friday Woollahra Council's planning office said they would take legal action in the Land & Environment Court unless Kerry Jones gave a written undertaking that she would hold no further events at Swifts without council planning permission. Mrs Jones has responded angrily and said she is thinking of cancelling an upcoming charity fundraiser in March for the Cornucopia Committee.

"Ridiculous" Parties!

 

 Five days after the Shuttle wrote of the continuing dramas over one of Sydney's premier properties, Swifts in Darling Point, the local newspaper The Wentworth Courier  adds to the tale with the following story :

 

"Saga over parties at Swifts branded 'ridiculous'

SWIFTS owner Kerry Jones has hit back at residents in the dispute over events at the historic Darling Point mansion, labelling their concerns “ridiculous”.

The newly-formed Darling Point Residents Action Group alleges that a string of events at Swifts since the property was restored by the Moran family a year ago have clogged the streets and disrupted the neighbourhood."

Kerry Jones (ABC TV)

 The local resident's spokesperson is quoted saying : “We fear that Swifts may become a commercial events centre and impact severely on the community,” 

Mrs Jones has responded :".... the two recent weddings held at the property were private events for friends...There are a few mischievous residents deliberately trying to confuse myself and the council about the difference between commercial and private use,” .

Two weddings in as many weeks. Charity fundraisers, an antiques fair, a publisher's Christmas party and a Melbourne Cup Day party are just a few of the events in the past year.
 One should be so lucky to have that many friends but with a mansion of 57 rooms, a ballroom and nearly two hectares of manicured lawns, friends are bound to be thick on the ground. Residents are concerned that the Gothic style house is being operated as a de-facto reception centre and say traffic on days when parties occur make parking a nightmare in the snooty harbour side suburb.

Kerry Jones is the former head of Australians For Constitutional Monarchy and successfully helped scupper the 1999 Republican referendum when colonials voted in the affirmative to keep the British monarchy as head of state.

Swifts was built in the 1880s by John Tooth, a beer brewing millionaire who wanted a bigger ballroom than the nearby Woolahra mansion Rosemount, home of the department store Jones family (no relation to Kerry Jones) and Government House. The Austrian brewing Reschs family bought the house and bequeathed it to the Catholic Church where it became home to the Cardinal for a few decades. Two Popes have stayed there.

In 1997 the nursing home tsar Doug Moran (Kerry Jones' father) paid $12M for the crumbling mansion and spent an estimated $12M restoring the sandstone edifice. Today the property is valued at over $60M in a suburb where just a pied-de-terre can command $1M. The Moran family themselves have had some bitter feuds but are now united and all living at the home.

Another typical Sydney saga that should run and run with all the right elements : money, property, family fights, champagne parties and a good dose of NIMBYism. 

Dramas In Deepest Darling Point

Its home to some of the most desirable real estate in Australia-the harbour side suburb of Darling Point with its tree lined boulevards and grand mansions.

Tom & Nicolle once lived there. So does Edward de Bono when in town,Ita Buttrose, singer Helen Reddy, actress Rachel Griffith and the extended Bushels tea family, the Oxleys who have not only the legendary Carthona ( Tom wanted to buy it a s a wedding present for Nicolle and offered $25M ) but houses on either side to house their extended family.

Slap bang in the middle of the burb is arguably the most expensive private property on the Eastern seaboard, the neo Gothic castle of cream sandstone, Swifts.

Built in 1886 by Robert Tooth, it was once home to the Austrian brewer Edmund Resch, then owned by the Catholic Church (Pope John Paul and Paul IV have stayed there) and for the last 20 years it's been the domicile of the nursing home tsars Doug and Greta Moran.

Putting a price on Swifts is difficult with its acres of manicured gardens but the Morans spent over $20M on just restoring the house. The Morans, worth an estimated $300M have retired and their children Kerry and Shane now oversee Swifts despite the fact they were once estranged from their parents for several years. With 56 rooms to ramble about in avoiding each other possibly wasn't too difficult.

Of late though neighbours have become edgy as Swifts appears to be hosting gatherings every week from the Rolls Royce Club to Melbourne Cup Day parties to Cornucopia Committee charity fundraisers and magazine launches.

 A week ago there was an antiques fair and locals are becoming embittered about the lack of parking and the noise that emanates from the gardens and Moorish ballroom, the only parts of Swifts strangers get to see.

Residents claim a 'commercial' kitchen has been installed and for the past 4 weeks there has been a function there every Friday evening. Siblings Kerry Jones and Shane Moran say they got the appropriate council permission but residents of a block of flats opposite where Lady Walton, scion of the department store family lives say the noise has been deafening and it carries right up to their 24th floor.

Expect fiery council meetings in February 2012 when the chambers are in session again.