Rupert Murdoch's eldest daughter Prue MacLeod buys Australia's most expensive terrace in Potts Point for $14 million

Australia’s terrace price record has been smashed, with Rupert Murdoch’s eldest daughter Prue MacLeod and her husband Alasdair paying more than $14 million for a four-storey Potts Point home.

The sale of the grand Victorian Italianate residence, known as Highclere, proved a lucrative windfall for father and son property investors Roy and Anthony Medich, who bought it for $12.5 million little more than a year ago.

The off-market deal tops the previous terrace record of $13 million set by another grand 1880s-built residence two doors away when it was sold in 2016 by Sydney socialite Heidi Onisforou to lawyer Karen Beck.

Rumours of the purchase were confirmed this week when updated title records revealed a caveat lodged on title in the name of the discretionary trust Wyelba, long linked to the MacLeods.

The same trust owns the MacLeods’ extensive rural holdings, including their Walcha property Woodburn bought in 2011 for $8.7 million, their historic Northern Rivers property Maidavale bought in 2008 for $16.25 million, and investment properties in Woollahra.

The couple’s purchase coincides with their hopes to quietly off-load their nearby Sydney base on Queen Street, Woollahra, for about $15 million.

McGrath’s William Manning, who is shopping around the Woollahra house, is rumoured to have negotiated the record-high terrace sale on behalf of the Medichs, but declined to comment for this story.

The Medichs bought the Potts Point terrace on dress circle Challis Avenue in late 2017 to be the headquarters of their Medich Corporation, but relocated to Bondi Beach six months later after buying casino mogul James Packer’s bachelor pad in Bondi Beach for $29 million through Mr Manning.

It remains unknown if the MacLeods plan to use the four-storey property as their Sydney base or utilise the current configuration with office space on the ground floor and four apartments on the upper levels.

Prue MacLeod is the eldest of Rupert Murdoch’s six children, and the only one predominantly based in Australia since her half-brother Lachlan returned to live in the US to take up the role as co-chairman of News Corp and executive chairman of 21st Century Fox.

Prue’s mother Patricia Booker was Murdoch’s first wife, married to him from 1956 to 1966.

Potts Point has become a high-end downsizer destination in recent years among Sydney’s establishment. Among the most recent high-end buyers are billionaire Gretel Packer, who paid $8.75 million for the Macleay Regis penthouse, and printing magnate Michael Hannan, who paid $8.325 million in late 2017 for an Ikon penthouse.

The luxury apartment market claimed the suburb record last November when audio king Peter Freedman paid $16 million for a penthouse atop the Villard building.

The Murdoch family’s real estate

The Murdoch family have long staked a claim to some of Sydney’s finest real estate.

Prue and Alasdair MacLeod’s Sydney base has been in Woollahra since 2014 when they bought the Queen Street house from former mining boss Nick Curtis and his wife Angela for $10.65 million. The house was previously owned by radio legend John Laws before he sold it to the Curtises in 2004 for $7.7 million.

At the time the MacLeods were downsizing from the waterfront mansion in Vaucluse they sold in 2012 for $13.25 million.

Prue MacLeod’s half-brother Lachlan Murdoch and his wife Sarah set an auction record of $23 million in 2009 when they bought Le Manoir in Bellevue Hill from the French government.

Lachlan’s first Sydney residence was the historic Elizabeth Bay property Berthong, purchased in 1995 for $6.85 million and sold to Russell Crowe in 2001 for $9.2 million.

The family’s rural holdings are among the state’s most impressive. Rupert Murdoch’s 10,000-hectare property at Yass, Cavan Station, is one of the state’s most notable.

Murdoch snr is predominantly based in New York with his fourth wife Jerry Hall in the One Madison penthouse he bought in 2014 for $US57.25 million.