Sydney surgery of renowned doctor on market after 50 years
When renowned Australian microsurgeon Dr Paul Lendvay finally decided to retire at the age of 78 and put his medical practice on the market after 50 years, he vowed he wouldn’t look back.
“When you make up your mind to do something, it’s like you want to make a clean amputation,” he said. “You cut everything off, and that includes the surgery itself!”
As a result, the six-room terrace house in Sydney’s Woollahra where he’s treated three generations of patients, including the grandchildren of his original patients, is now on the market.
The terrace has been Dr Lendvay’s surgery for 50 years. Photo: Supplied
The late 19th-century building, set on 214 square metres and only 300 metres from Bondi Junction’s Westfield Shopping Centre and the transport interchange, is up for auction on February 27 through agent 1st City. It has a price guide of $2.2 million.
Agent Julian Hasemer said the building at 147 Edgecliff Road is a little bit of history – both in its fabric, and with its current owner.
“Paul’s surgery has been there for many years now and the building has a beautiful period façade, in a magical location,” he says. “It’s part of an evolving hub of a precinct, with both commercial and residential zoning.
“There are GPs, dentists, consulting rooms, art galleries, cafes and clothing shops, and it’s so close to everything else in Bondi Junction. While the property’s in need of some TLC, it could continue as a consulting rooms, become used for retail, or there’s also the possibility of building upstairs to have a home with offices beneath.”
The house has double parking with rear-lane access, a 6.1-metre street frontage, high ceilings, ducted airconditioning, one bathroom and numerous outdoor entertaining areas.
The 214-square-metre property, close to Bondi Junction, is zoned residential and commercial. Photo: Supplied
Despite his retirement from surgery last year, Dr Lendvay is still hard at work at the medical practice, seeing his regular patients and those who need post-operative care.
“It’s funny but when you tell people you’re retiring, they start thinking of all the things they should have asked you,” Dr Lendvay said. “I’m now busier than ever. But now I think I need time for myself, away from sorting out everyone else’s issues.”
Dr Lendvay came to Australia from Britain, where he worked with the legendary British micro-surgery pioneer John Cobbett, who performed the world’s first successful transplantation in 1968 of the big toe to the hand to reconstruct a thumb.
He’s been interested in hand surgery ever since and became the first microsurgeon in Australia to reattach amputated limbs. In 1969 he sewed a man’s amputated hand back on at the Auburn District Hospital and performed many more surgeries in the years that followed, particularly reattaching fingers, hands and arms.
After his first major operation, he was interviewed by a journalist and declared that he couldn’t imagine ever being able to perform such complex operations after the age of 40. He was still operating last year.
“A lot has changed in the last 50 years, but a lot has also stayed the same,” said Dr Lendvay, who has three children and eight grandchildren. ”When I started, I think there were only about 12 of us in the world. Now there are probably closer to 12 million.”
But the former chairman of the Royal Australasian College of Surgeons’ NSW chapter of plastic and reconstructive surgery, and head of the department of plastic and reconstructive surgery at The Prince of Wales Hospital, the Sydney Children’s Hospital and Prince Henry Hospital, doesn’t plan on putting his feet up in retirement.
“I need more time for my skiing, golf and tennis,” Dr Lendvay said. “Skiing is my passion. It’s nonsense that you have to give those kind of pursuits up as you grow older. It’s that old thing, if you don’t drink alcohol, stop eating rich foods and give up sex, you may not live to 100, but it’ll feel like it …”
