Google's Anil Sabharwal adds to his Gladesville waterfront by buying next door for $5.9m

Sydney’s tech industry leaders are known for their preference for expansive family compounds, and Google Photos creator Anil Sabharwal is no exception.

Having already bought a waterfront home in Gladesville in late 2015 for $3.71 million and recently completed a major redesign of the luxury residence, Mr Sabharwal and his wife Jessica have staked a claim on a $5.975 million chunk of waterfront over the back fence.

The couple’s newly purchased double block of 1500 square metres was previously owned by property developer and race car driver Adrian Mastronardo, but sold by the bank with a half-completed residence on the block.

The purchase by one of Google’s most senior global executives not only takes his Gladesville waterfront holding to 3000 square metres for a total of almost $9.7 million, but also secures a private outlook from the rear of this adjoining current home and ends any unwanted potential over-development of the block.

Mr Sabharwal, who led the creation of Google Photos, only returned to Australia from the internet giant’s Mountain View headquarters in California last year having taken up the role of vice-president of photos and communications.

It’s an impressive return to Australia for the couple who sold their former Sydney home, a 1950s house on Ryde Road, Pymble, in 2012 for $810,000.

Mastronardo, managing director of property developer Veritas, first bought the streetfront half of the site in 2000 paying $875,000 for what was then a blond brick house. The adjoining 750-square-metre waterfront block with jetty and slipway was added in 2007 for $2.8 million from lawyer Russell Byrnes.

In 2017, it was firebombed in the early hours of the morning  when Mastronardo was at home asleep. Two suspects were seen outside the house on CCTV footage throwing a molotov cocktail through the front window, but no one charged with the offence.

It was listed last year but didn’t sell, and relisted more recently with no price guide with Bresic Whitney’s Nicholas McEvoy.

There were about 100 people on site to see a handful of registed bidders compete for the property when it went under the hammer in July. The Sabharwals’ purchase was only revealed when the couple settled on the property.

Sydney’s tech leaders are renowned for their big-ticket property plays of recent years, most notably the acreage estate in Point Piper, Fairwater, bought a year ago by tech billionaire Mike Cannon-Brookes for $100 million and to which he added a $12 million next door earlier this year.

Co-founder of email marketing firm Campaign Monitors Dave Greiner splashed more than $24.6 million last year on three apartments and a duplex on oceanfront reserve at Cronulla to create a 1100-square-metre site on which to build his forever home.

His Campaign Monitors co-founder Ben Richardson and his wife, Inger, are also undertaking their own site amalgamation of four blocks overlooking the beach at nearby Greenhills Beach with a DA lodged for a $6 million house with a pool and tennis court.

Menulog co-founder Leon Kamenev paid $79.7 million for four houses in Vaucluse in 2016 with work underway on his waterfront mansion, and a year ago InfoTrack founder Christian Beck added to his Longueville $8.6 million waterfront home by buying next door for $4.13 million.