Garry and Susan Rothwell crowned Palm Beach land barons after buying $15m neighbour

Architects-turned-property developers Susan and Garry Rothwell have paid almost $15 million for the Palm Beach retreat The Hideaway, making them the largest private land owners in Palm Beach.

Property consolidations are nothing new among Sydney’s well-heeled, but they have loomed large this year as discretionary spending usually reserved for holidays overseas and interstate were ploughed back into the local market.

The Rothwells’ purchase of a fourth holiday home takes their holding to almost 9000 square metres, creating a family compound fit for the extended Rothwell clan in lockdown that extends from Barrenjoey Road to the top of the hill at Sunrise Road and includes their house that starred in last year’s Rachel Ward-directed movie Palm Beach.

It was listed earlier this year following the death of the late, renowned art dealer Shirley Wagner by Ray White Palm Beach’s Noel Nicholson, who declined to confirm the Rothwell purchase or price, but sold it within 24 hours of revising the guide to $15 million.

Palm Beach’s next largest holding is the Kalua estate, a 5500-square-metre property bought by retired car dealer Laurie Sutton for $22 million in 2012, followed by the Packer family’s weekender on 3800 square metres.

Sydney’s highest property sale this year was a consolidation of a duplex on the waterfront in Point Piper known as Edgewater for $95 million.

Built in the 1980s by showbiz entrepreneur Michael Edgley and his then wife Jeni, it was sold in 1985 for $5 million to the co-founders of the late Katies clothing chain Joe Brender and the late Sam Moss.

Used as separate residences since then, the purchase of it by interests linked to businessman John Li is expected to re-established Edgewater as a single residence when it settles in two to three years.

Ying Yu, property investor and director of Chatswood tutoring company Panda College, no sooner settled on a $17.5 million mansion in Vaucluse than she added the four-bedroom house next door for $7 million.

Marco Rossi, the chairman of one of Australia’s largest private construction groups Built, and his partner Stephanie Stokes added to their Bellevue Hill home Yoorami mid-year when they bought the house in front of their battle-axe block for $6.22 million, effectively creating a 3800-square-metre parcel.

In Bayview, Louise and Matthew Baxter, owner of Dutch super yacht builder Moonen, doubled the size of their Bayview property holdings. Already owners of a hilltop estate with tennis court and pool purchased in 2016 for $6.5 million, they added the house next door on 4000 square metres this month for $10 million.

The Bellevue Hill mansion of Shay Lewis-Thorp, daughter of the late property tycoon Bernard Lewis, sold for about $29 million to next door neighbour Louise Christie for her daughter Edwina.

In the Southern Highlands, timber industry boss Paul Shadbolt added 48 hectares to his Southern Highlands property Ulster Park for more than $5.5 million.

Drew Lindsay Real Estate’s Samuel Lindsay declined to confirm Shadbolt’s purchase, but was offering the colonial-style homestead with impressive equestrian facilities to buyers before it sold. Sources say the result offers is a decent return to Michael Whelan given it last traded in 2011 for $3.05 million when sold by retired vet Brian Farrow and his wife Maureen.

Something to keep in mind for Shadbolt’s other neighbours, radio shock jock Alan Jones and actors Judy Davis and Colin Friels.