Former health care chief Chris Rex joins busy Tamarama prestige marketplace with $11m house

Tamarama has emerged as a crowded marketplace for ultra-prestige homes in recent weeks with the ranks of double-digit offerings joined on Friday by the home of former Ramsay Health Care chief Chris Rex and his wife Lynette.

The couple own Pavilion House, a Walter Barda-designed residence they bought three years ago for $11.2 million from sports and entertainment manager Basil Scaffidi and his wife Catherine.

“There are only 210 houses in Tamarama and this is one of the best,” said D’Leanne Lewis, of Laing+Simmons Double Bay, who has listed it with Alexander Phillips, of Phillips Pantzer Donnelley.

To that end Pavilion House carries a guide of $11 million to $11.5 million ahead of a September 19 auction.

The downsizing plans by Rex comes just days after it emerged he and Rod Jones, founder and chairman of Navitas, are the financial backers and advisers to a new $100 million healthcare fund HEAL Partners.

It comes as the eastern suburbs beaches enjoys a slew of record high sales results, most pertinently in Tamarama of $15.75 million last year when Annie Conley sold her beachside house and more recently in Bronte when green energy entrepreneur Carl Prins and his wife Kate bought for a high of $17.9 million.

First to hit the market in the hope of cashing in on the buyer activity was former Rubicon director Matthew Cooper, whose architect Madeleine Blanchfield-designed residence Headland House was listed in late June for more than $15 million.

Last month former Travelogic founder Craig Smith and his wife Kate listed their Thompson Street home that they bought as a knockdown-rebuild in 2017 for $12.5 million amid hopes of topping that result thanks to a new DA for an architect Madeleine Blanchfield-designed residence.

And a few doors away Nadia Jacob and Peter Scutt, founder of online home care platform Mable, have $14 million to $15 million expectations on their recently renovated house.

If only YouTube gamer Elliott Watkins, aka Muselk, hadn’t already snapped up the beachside house across the road from the Rex family for $9.28 million earlier this month.