HISTORIC Warrnambool property Airlie has sold for about $2 million, making it the city's most expensive house.

Homeseeka Rescom director Peter Herbert confirmed the Victorian mansion sold for an undisclosed sum but would not elaborate on the price or buyer of the property.

Howeve r, sources within the local real estate industry believe the property sold for close to $2 million.

This would mean Airlie more than doubled in value since it last changed hands a decade ago for $810,000.

Airlie , located in Henna Street, took the mantle of the city's most expensive house from Moolooloo, a homestead in Spence Street, which sold for about $1 million in June 2005. A Hopkins Point Road property sold for just under the $1 million mark in June 2004.

Airlie's new tag may be short-lived with a modern clifftop house near the Hopkins River mouth on the market for more than $2 million. But the Warrnambool properties are far cry from the $3 million paid for The Breakers at Port Fairy's south beach last year. Built in 1867 by well-known merchant John Glass Cramond, Airlie has become one of Warrnambool's most admired properties for its lavish colonial architecture.

Ai rlie's history of owners has been a fascinating one with one grazier using the mansion as his townhouse during seaside holidays away from his pastoral holding and between hunting expeditions to India.

By the late 1980s Airlie had fallen into a state of disrepair until the property was sold to a Melbourne-based couple, then a young Warrnambool couple who spent several years and hundreds of thousands of dollars restoring the building to its former glory.

The sandstone home of 57 squares features six bedrooms, three bathrooms, formal sitting rooms, a magnificent ballroom and a marble fireplace.