Simon Baker and Rebecca Rigg sell Bronte house for $17 million

Simon Baker and Rebecca Rigg have quietly sold their Bronte home for close to $17 million, marking a lucrative end to their 29-year marriage.

The price has shocked local property watchers given the former couple paid just $6.5 million for the almost 380 square metre property in 2015 when it was near new, and have not undertaken any significant improvements to it since.

Indeed, it is the second highest sale in the prized beachside suburb, topped only by the much larger house around the corner that sold for $17.9 million last year to green energy entrepreneur Carl Prins.

The result translates to $44,854 per square metre, which is expected to be among the top eastern beaches house sales in terms of the square-metre rate.

The off-market sale was hoped to remain a tightly guarded secret until settlement later this year, but the frequent visits by various agents tipped off neighbours to the pending sale, and sources have since pinned this week’s deal on The Agency’s Ben Collier.

Collier was not available for comment, but is no stranger to The Mentalist star. In 2016 Collier sold Baker’s former Sydney base, an apartment on North Bondi’s Ben Buckler, for $3.69 million to e-commerce entrepreneur Simon Hill.

Baker and Rigg confirmed their separation early this year, and sold their former home in California in March for $US6.46 million. Rigg is currently based in New York while Baker has taken up with athleisurewear designer Laura May Gibbs and is based in Byron Bay at his historic homestead in the Nashua hinterland.

Bronte’s high-end values have soared 58 per cent in the past five years, with a slew of ultra-prestige sales in the past year alone as buyer demand has outstripped supply.

Across the road from the Baker and Rigg home on St Thomas Street is a house sold by Rove McManus and his wife Tasma Walton last December for $14.6 million, a jump of 128 per cent since they purchased the house four years earlier for $6.4 million but after a major renovation.