Demetri's Castle sells for $900,000 loss, not including its televised labour of love

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Demetri’s Castle, also known as the historic gothic Mount Martha mansion Glynt Manor, has been sold for $3,399,000 – a $900,000 loss in three years.

It was initially listed by hair and make-up artists Demetri and Lila Sideropoulos, who wanted $6.5 million for the nine-bedroom, eight-bathroom mansion on its 2010 listing.

The Greek couple, whose celebrity clients have included Matt Damon, Russell Crowe, Bert Newton and the Pussycat Dolls, bought the 1914 house in July 2008 for $4.3 million from Michael Puttock and Diana Carr.

They then thoroughly renovated it into a family home and bed and breakfast on the SBS documentary Demetri’s Castle.

It sits on about 8,000 square metres, with views of Port Phillip Bay and the Melbourne lights in the distance. It was designed by Harold Desbrowe Annear as a single-storey farmhouse for the Henty family, descendants of Victoria's first European settlers.

It bears a similarity to another of his designs, Delgany at Portsea. Its later owners included the Buxton family from 1917 to 1983 when the then 31-hectare property featured sweeping lawns, orchards and farmlands that ran right to the edge of the bay.

In 1969 the family subdivided the property but retained the manor and two hectares of beautiful English- and French-inspired gardens.

In 1983 the property was sold to new owners, who restored the grand old manor and ran it as a tourism resort, naming it "Glynt By The Sea". It was again run as a bed and breakfast from the mid-1990s by the adventure travel pioneer Bill King.

Mark Callan and William Gilchrist bought the property in 1997 and commissioned Yarraville architect Hugh Basset to undertake some interior redesigns while the home's former gardener, Bob Barker, who started work at Glynt in the late 1920s, returned to restore the gardens.

The duo sold the property in 2000 for $2.35 million.

Last year the Sideropouloses indicated they were selling so they could pursue opportunities overseas, saying they didn't get attached to things. Geoff Smith from LJ Hooker Frankston sold earlier this month, some four weeks after its scheduled October auction.

ASIC documents indicate Smith was taking instructions from administrators of the holding company Mt Martha Landmark Pty Ltd.