Entrepreneur’s Point Piper trophy home hits market for $100 million

Entrepreneur Alexandra Jakob would not be alone in thinking a lot has changed since 2019, but on the other side of a pandemic, nationwide lockdowns and a blowout in inflation, she will be hoping trophy home values have soared in the past five years in Sydney.

After all, Jakob on Wednesday listed her distinctively curved house on the Point Piper waterfront for $100 million, which would put it among the three highest house sales in the country if it goes at that price.

The selling plans come just five years after Jakob purchased it for $40 million from former Morgan Stanley Australia boss and Westpac director Steve Harker, making it that year’s highest house price sale.

While 2019 is remembered for its lacklustre performance, trophy home records have recalibrated since. The national house price record of $100 million set by Point Piper’s Fairwater estate in 2018 was topped in 2022 when Atlassian co-founder Scott Farquhar paid $130 million for Point Piper’s Uig Lodge.

Jakob’s bullish asking price is all the more unique because selling agents Monika Tu and Jad Khattar, of BlackDiamondz Concierge, have opted for a public sales campaign, starting on Wednesday.

Trophy homes in Point Piper are most commonly offered in off-market campaigns, including Wolseley Road’s most recent sale behind closed doors in May for more than $80 million for the Rockleigh mansion to recycled shopping bag businessman Frank Qiang Geng and Juanjuan Zhao.

Jakob’s home isn’t the most expensive property currently for sale in Point Piper. A few doors away is the waterfront residence Wingadal owned by “Aussie” John Symond, founder of Aussie Home Loans, listed in May with a guide of more than $200 million.

Jakob’s five-bedroom, six-bathroom house with a harbourside swimming pool and a private slipway has been renovated during her ownership, and comes with approval for an upper level designed by architect Bruce Stafford.

Two years ago, the house made headlines as one of three in a row owned by Jakob and her former husband Gabriel Jakob (previously known as Yakob) that were purchased for a total of almost $100 million amid plans to build the “most expensive house in Australia” across the site.

Those plans have since been binned after the Jakobs divorced.

Her plans to downsize her Sydney home and spend more time travelling follows a successful run of private equity buy-outs of her previous business interests.

Jakob established her first childcare aged just 21 and founded her Little Learning childcare centre chain in 2006, selling it to Bain Capital in 2018 in a deal worth a reported $150 million. Jakob also established haircare brand BondiBoost, which was sold to US private equity fund Gauge Capital in 2022.