Bronte record smashed with almost $18m sale to green energy entrepreneur Carl Prins

Who says the clean energy industry doesn’t pay? The Bronte record has been smashed by the sale of a hillside house for $17.9 million to green energy entrepreneur Carl Prins and his wife Kate.

The off-market deal was on the home of lawyer Sarah Druce. Her husband is stocktrader Keiran Horth, who was until earlier this year a director at trading house Propex Derivatives but more recently joined SEO start-up Longtail UX.

Druce bought the Gardyne Street property in 2013 for $5 million from Nicola Darling, wife of property developer Alistair Darling, and the following year commissioned a contemporary two-storey residence set well above street level with basement garaging.

Talk of an $18 million deal on this property earlier this year was dismissed by Alexander Phillips, of Phillips Pantzer Donnelley, but was confirmed when records settled this week in the Prins’ family name.

The sale tops Bronte’s previous high of $16.8 million set last year when the nearby Tipper Avenue home of Lisa Burgess-Hoar, wife of Frontier ad agency owner Neil Hoar, sold to Katie and Darian Jagger, boss of boutique investment firm Cygnet Capital.

It is the second-highest eastern suburbs coastal house sale behind the $29 million paid for the Bondi Beach home of James Packer by father and son property investors Roy and Anthony Medich.

The Prins’ purchase is a step up the property ladder from the Californian bungalow the couple bought in 2013 for $2.8 million soon after the 38-year-old Prins stepped down as chief financial officer at hedge fund Arrowgrass Capital.

In 2016 Prins co-founded energy comparison company Handled, and stepped down last year to reemerge in the carbon neutrality services space earlier this year when he and Charbel Ayoub founded Pathzero.

The Prins’ purchase coincides with the sale of the nearby Bronte designer home of TV producers Sonja Armstrong and Chris Hilton, the latter of whom quit as chief executive of Essential Media last November following a restructure and cost cutting program.

The Mary Ellen Hudson-designed residence was listed in May for $6 million and sources say it sold for almost that amount.