Singo preps to sell ‘heroic home’
Ad guru John Singleton is prepping to sell his ‘heroic home’. Picture By Ryan Osland/The Australian
Retired adman John Singleton has been giving thought to selling Paddington Court, one of the last traces of his time in advertising.
The property was bought in 1976 to accommodate the ad agency SPASM (Singleton Palmer and Strauss McAllan), which traded at the premises until the sale of the business. The property then became the creative hub of the advertising agency Mojo.
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John Singleton is set to sell his Paddington property which holds the Bonython Cafe. Picture: Instagram
Set amid Paddington’s pricey residential terraces, the commercial building features a large quadrangle with willows and holds the Bonython Cafe.
The four-building complex runs between 120B Underwood St and 54 Victoria St.
Singleton and fellow adman Duncan McAllan paid $300,000 through their joint venture vehicle Ringo and The Baron Pty Ltd to art gallery owner Kym Bonython, who was moving back to Adelaide.
At 1022sq m, the Bonython Galleries was the then largest commercial gallery in Australia, with The Bulletin suggesting back then that it was “heroically proportioned”.
It had previously been a bottle cleaning plant and bakery.
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John Singleton in his Paddington office. Picture: Ryan Osland/The Australian
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The Bonython gallery was part of the emerging bohemia in Paddington as artists converged on the slum suburb following the opening of Rudy Komon’s gallery in 1959.
Komon’s gallery was followed by Betty O’Neill’s gallery The Hungry Horse on Windsor St, Senta Taft’s Galleries Primitif on Jersey Rd, Gallery A on Gipps St and, of course, the enduring Barry Stern Galleries on Glenmore Rd.
Singleton and McAllan, who is no longer a co-owner, added a fourth property in 1977, which was bought from the legendary arts patron Annette Dupree for $37,500.
The consolidated battleaxe property was passed in at $2m at a 1991 auction.
Meanwhile, the Parterre antique store premises on the Ocean and Queen St corner in Woollahra is for sale for the first time in 40 years.
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