Mike Cannon-Brookes buys house next door to Fairwater for $12m

Tech billionaire Mike Cannon-Brookes has continued his monumental property splurge of last year, buying the house next door to his $100 million Point Piper estate.

The Atlassian co-founder and co-chief’s latest acquisition is a $12 million house that backs onto Cannon-Brookes’ 1.1-hectare Fairwater property. It had been owned by chairman of Medlab Clinical research facility Michael Hall and his wife Elizabeth Jones, owner of the Arida clothing boutique in Potts Point.

The four-bedroom house with a swimming pool on 689 square metres is set one house back from the beach.

The property was known as St Mervyns mansion in the 1960s when owned by chairman of the Cahills restaurant chain Edgar Swain and later owned by his daughter Valerie, whose husband, Max Sturzenegger, also headed the company.

Title records indicate there was no agent involved in the off-market deal, and there was no response from calls to Cannon-Brookes’s representative.

The co-founder and co-chief executive of software giant Atlassian went on a prodigious property buying spree last year, acquiring more than $131 million worth of prestige real estate.

In September Cannon-Brookes smashed all house price records buying the home of the late Lady (Mary) Fairfax for $100 million, and a day later settled on an earlier off-market purchase of Double Bay’s heritage residence Verona for $17 million.

Cannon-Brookes and his wife Annie were already known for having a penchant for Double Bay real estate at the time, buying a beachside semi in February for $9.1 million a short walk from their heritage home Sea Dragon which they had bought two years earlier for $7 million.

A Southern Highlands weekender was added in May when he bought the Kangaloon property Rosehill Farm for $5.35 million, just 18 months after the couple bought a 390-hectare property at Joadja for $3.3 million.

Cannon-Brookes did sell one property last year, pocketing $16.5 million for his Centennial Park trophy home Braelin from prominent art patrons Dr Gene and Brian Sherman in April.

Atlassian’s co-founder and co-chief Scott Farquhar is also renowned for his impressive property purchases, having bought the Fairfax family’s Elaine estate next door to Fairwater in 2017 for $71 million, and last year buying a Bellevue Hill house for $16.25 million to live in while he and his wife, investment banker Kim Jackson, renovate their Point Piper estate.