Oroton boss Ross Lane paid $9m for Manly home, sells three years later for $15m

The Manly trophy home market scored a fillip on Friday afternoon when the beachfront home of Oroton chief executive Ross Lane sold for more than $15 million.

The sale comes just three years after Lane purchased the absolute beachfront residence for $9 million from his brother Tom Lane and his wife, Emma.

The sale result sets a record for freehold property in Manly, topped only by the $16 million sale of last year for the oceanfront home on a Catholic Church leasehold sold by Sophie Hutchinson, wife of former chief executive of collapsed education and training provider Vocation Mark Hutchinson, to specialist laparoscopic surgeon Craig Taylor.

Lane’s 592-square metre property was previously part-owned by the late Olympian Betty Cuthbert, before Tom and Emma Lane bought it in 2007 for $4.4 million.

The Lanes rebuilt the four-level residence with internal lift and home theatre before he sold it to his brother Ross, who then sold his nearby Shelly Beach home for $9.5 million to Seven’s chief executive Tim Worner.

Lane undertook his own renovation of the Little Manly Beach property with interiors by Briony Fitzgerald before listing it with Jake Rowe, of Rowe Partners.

Mr Rowe confirmed the sale on Friday afternoon but declined to declare the sale price, leaving it to sources to reveal that it sold in the $15 million to $16 million range.

Lane returned to head up his family’s handbag brand two years ago after a decade-long absence from the company that was founded by his grandfather Boyd Lane in 1938.

In late 2017, Oroton went into voluntary administration, but was bought out by funds manager Will Vicars and is reportedly set to return to profitability this year.

Manly’s property record long stood at $11 million for a block of waterfront land sold in 2009 to philanthropist and retired transport magnate Greg Poche and his wife, Kay van Norton.

That changed when Hutchinson sold his oceanfront home for $16 million last year, followed by the $14 million sale on the same street a few months later when his buyer Dr Taylor sold for $14 million to Justine Acret, wife of Smartline mortgage broking franchise co-founder Chris Acret.