Russell Staley pays $15.5 million for knock-down rebuild in Collaroy

Oil and gas multimillionaire Russell Staley is already known for his expensive taste in beachfront real estate, and this week’s $15.5 million purchase of a knockdown-rebuild site in Collaroy will do nothing to dim that reputation.

The sale of the two houses on beachfront reserve not only smashes the local house price record, but sources say the site is expected to become one of the area’s most expensive trophy homes once a planned rebuild of the 1500-square metre site is complete.

Staley and his wife Jennifer live only five doors away from their new property, having bought their beachfront home in the exclusive Collaroy Basin for $5.2 million in 2006 and commissioning a distinctive contemporary residence designed by Peter Stutchbury Architects.

The sale through Alison Coopes, of her eponymous agency, tops Collaroy’s previous house price high of $6.3 million set in 2006 by HCAP founder Steven Howell, and the $8.7 million high for a double block set in 2012.

Outside of Palm Beach, the only northern beaches sale to top Staley’s is about $16 million earlier this year in Manly for the Fairy Bower home of former chief executive of collapsed education and training provider Vocation Mark Hutchinson.

The two Beach Road houses were long-owned by the late Ronald Smith, founder of the sand and gravel company Benedict, who died late last year.

Records show Smith had bought the first house in 1981 for $245,000 and added next door in 1989 for $800,000 to create a family compound.

Staley was a regular on the rich lists until 2014 thanks to his early investment and senior executive position at the ASX-listed engineering services group WorleyParsons, from where he retired in 2004 to invest in deep-sea drilling services company Geotech Benthic.

The Geotech chairman’s weekender is a nine-hectare beachfront property at Broken Head on the North Coast, which he bought in 2011 for $6.3 million from the rich list Smorgon family, who in turn had bought it in 2005 from Paul Hogan and John Cornell for $5.02 million. The property next door smashed his Broken Head high in 2014 when sold for $7 million to Chris Hemsworth and his wife Elsa Pataky.

Staley’s corporate filings reveal his previous homes have included some of the best beachfront homes on the northern beaches during his many major home rebuilds, including houses in Narrabeen, Newport and his former Collaroy beachfront home he sold in 2013 for $5.1 million.