Late tech guru’s disputed ‘Camelot’ sells at auction

The local family buyers may need to put a fence around the koi pond in the foyer, if their children are young.

A deceased estate with astro turf in the lounge room and a koi pond above a dome in the entry foyer has sold for double-digit millions at auction.

The Centennial Park mansion, Camelot — owned by the estate of a tech entrepreneur Andrew Findlay— fetched a whopping $11m.

With auctioneer Damien Cooley presiding, four registered and three competing, bidding opened at the $10m price guide, rising in $200k, $100k, $150k and $50k increments at the Saturday auction.

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Astro turf in the lounge room.

The home sold for $11m at auction on Saturday.

It’s understood the agent, Ben Collier of The Agency, had an $11m reserve, though in media reports about a court case regarding who should inherit the trophy home it was estimated to be worth $15m-plus.

Findlay had bought the home on its 752sqm block at 40 Martin Rd for $5.4m in 2015 and later split with his defacto partner, Elizabeth Kemp.

He died in a freak boating accident in 2023.

Following Findlay’s death, Kemp took possession of his Mercedes-Benz, moved into Camelot, the couple’s former home, and changed the locks.

There’d been a 2015 will in which Findlay left his entire estate to her, but he’d made a 2019 will — unsigned — where he left everything to his three children.

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Andrew Findlay died in a tragic boating accident in 2023. Picture: Supplied

The home had cost Findlay $5.4m in 2015.

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Kemp disputed the validity of the unsigned will, but last July — a year to the day since his body was found washed up on the rocks below The Gap at Watsons Bay — a Supreme Court Judge ruled his estate would be inherited by the children and not their mother.

It’s understood a local family will be moving in, possibly after redecorating what was described as a “timeless example of mid century Modernist design in all its glory” in the marketing.

They may need to put a fence around the koi pond in the foyer, if the family has young children.

Camelot was built by Ford Pills founder pharmacist William Rogers, who bought it for $36,000 in 1967.

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