Billionaire Mike Cannon-Brookes buys three houses next door for $12.25m

Likewise, Cannon-Brookes didn’t stop at the $24.5 million he paid for the Newport home of Jennifer Hawkins and her husband Jake Wall. Months later he added a block behind for $1.4 million, and last year Annie added the house next door for $14.25 million.

Having established themselves as Palm Beach locals in 2013 the then-couple started exploring the western foreshores of Pittwater in more recent years, buying two houses on Great Mackerel Beach for $2.3 million and $2.55 million apiece, a house at Coasters Retreat for $4.65 million and an $8 million estate on Scotland Island.

The jewel in the Cannon-Brookes portfolio remains the $100 million Fairwater estate in Point Piper, to which they have since added the $12 million house next door and a $4.3 million apartment in a neighbouring block.

But wait, there’s more. As well as the Mt Gibraltar stock, there are another 11 properties in the Southern Highlands from Joadja to Moss Vale and Kangaloon, totalling more than $114 million.

Annie hasn’t let up either. Since she and Mike’s separation was announced last year, she has added the historic Anglewood House at Burradoo for $14.5 million.

Rove’s semi flip

Comedian and television presenter Rove McManus and his wife Tasma Walton unwittingly showcased the crazy state of Sydney house prices on Thursday when they sold their Coogee semi for about $7.25 million.

There was at least a major rebuild undertaken by the Perth-based couple since they purchased it at auction in 2021 for $3.76 million as a dilapidated two-bedder.

The redesign – spearheaded by Walton – created what is now a three-level semi with four bedrooms and a swimming pool. But still, it’s a semi.

The price was not on offer from The Agency’s Bethwyn Richards, who also sold their former Bronte house for $14.6 million in late 2020.

Seven’s quality content

Amid an exodus of Seven’s top brass – from Bruce McWilliam down to News director Craig McPherson and Spotlight’s executive producer Mark Llewellyn – senior executive Angus Ross looks unlikely to be handing in his security pass anytime soon.

After all, Seven’s chief content officer and his wife Joanne are the rumoured $12 million buyers of a Federation house on the Coogee-Randwick border known as St Ives.

The 1100-square-metre property was listed by Rove McManus’s selling agent and owner Bethwyn Richards, who was asking $10 million with co-agent James Ball, of Sotheby’s.

Neither agent would comment on the sale, but they have promptly co-listed the Ross family’s European-style villa in Woollahra in the $9 million range.

The four-level home has been renovated since they bought it in 2015 for $3.85 million with interiors by designer Phoebe Nicol, as featured in the May 2019 issue of Belle magazine.

Heritage winners

In Balmain, the landmark converted Gothic-style convent owned by former Colonial First State board member Penny James and retired healthcare worker Stephen James has sold for a suburb high of $13.05 million by Laing+Simmons’ Megan Smith.

Settlement records show it was purchased by Thomas Bailey, who is coming from a nearby cottage he owns with his partner Jocelyn Li Jiayang.

Built in 1876 by colonial architect Edmund Blacket for the Sisters of the Good Samaritan, the sale shows the market has caught up with its bullish $12 million asking price of 2020.

Still with heritage sales, the Double Bay home of Jacqueline MacMahon, of the Field pastoralist family, and her architect husband Bill MacMahon scored a sold sticker this week, six months after it was listed for $25 million by Goodyer’s Pauline Goodyer and Sotheby’s Michael Pallier.

MCA Buyer’s Agency’s Tina Clark declined to confirm the $21 million result, saying only that it sold to an expat.