F45 founder Rob Deutsch buys Patchway estate in Southern Highlands for $4.8m

Rob Deutsch, the founder of fitness juggernaut F45, has joined the fast swelling ranks of the Southern Highlands set, buying Burradoo’s prized Patchway estate for $4.8 million.

Deutsch joins an exodus of Sydneysiders fleeing to the bucolic Bowral surrounds amid the COVID-19 pandemic, among them Portaloo king Malcolm Williams, who recently bought the Fitzroy Falls weekender of iiNet co-founder Michael Malone for $4.5 million, and Mac banker Greg Ward who bought food magnate Roy Manassen’s vineyard for $8.4 million in June.

Deutsch has had a busy time in property since he stepped down as chief of the fitness giant earlier this year. In April he flirted with the idea of selling his $11.2 million Bronte home but withdrew it a few weeks later, and he made time to visit Queensland a few months before the border closed to buy a $2 million house on Mermaid Beach.

Deutsch’s latest purchase is a grand 16-room residence on 8300 square metres that was built in the 1940s by Eric Pratten and previously owned by Rabbit Photo founder Neil Cottee, steel fabrication businessman Ken Wilson and most recently former boss of Hambros investment bank Ed Blackadder and his wife Elaine.

Barnetts to bid farewell to Darling Point  

Matthew Barnett, the former director of collapsed broker Halifax Investment, and his wife Susan are selling their Darling Point home, Casa Ombu, amid local talk they are moving to the United Kingdom.

The impressive five-level residence was developed as part of the Babworth estate by convicted fraudster Nati Stoliar, and bought by the Barnetts in 2016 for $5.4 million from former Glencore Australia boss William O’Keeffe.

Sotheby’s James McCowan was yet to respond to calls, but buyers are being offered the $18 million sale of  Olympian Mark Kerry’s home a few doors away as a guide.

Move from Mosman on the menu 

Restaurateur Mark McLoughlin, of the Public Dining Room at Balmoral Beach, and his wife Suzie have sold their Mosman home on the quiet and months before a major rebuild is completed.

Sources say about $11.5 million was paid for the half-built house on waterfront reserve at Beauty Point after buyer’s agent Peter Kelaher introduced a returning expat to the property.

The couple bought the Bay Street house in 2016 for $4,425,000, and in 2017 scored DA approval to rebuild as a three-level house with a pool.

It was a who’s who of local agents involved in the negotiations given it was listed with LJ Hooker Avnu’s Michael Coombs and Knight Frank’s Mark Manners, with Belle’s Tim Foote involved.

From one developer to another

Property developer Nico Tjen, who heads up Icon Oceania, has snapped up the penthouse atop the Omnia building at Potts Point for $8.25 million.

It was an off-the-plan purchase by Tjen, and makes him a direct neighbour to the Omnia’s other penthouse owner Steve Duchen, of the rich-list pharmaceutical family, who paid $15.72 million last year for both his penthouse and a studio apartment downstairs.

Tjen’s latest sale by CBRE’s Ben Stewart and Dylan Frith leaves only 12 new apartments left to be sold by Greenland Development in the 19-level building on the former Crest Hotel site.

Tjen is no stranger to luxury real estate given his former home is the Vaucluse residence his mother Julina Lim bought in 2015 for $12.85 million from former investment banker and venture capitalist John Grant.

Birchgrove’s poetic licence

The Birchgrove home of poet and publisher John Tranter and his wife literary agent Lyn Tranter is for sale for the first time in a quarter of a century given their plans to downsize locally.

The freestanding house on 260 square metres comes with a prized double car space and a swimming pool at the rear.

Purchased in 1995 for $482,500, it returns to the market with a $2.7 million guide by McGrath’s Cindy Kennedy ahead of an August 29 auction.