Stockbroker Brent Potts lists Rose Bay trophy Villa Florida for $45 million

Veteran stockbroker Brent Potts and his wife Pauline have listed their Rose Bay trophy home Villa Florida for more than $45 million, making it the most expensive residence to be put to the market this year.

Given less than nine weeks until the property markets wind down over Christmas and a surprisingly strong high-end market despite broader economic headwinds, more of  Sydney’s trophy home owners are shrugging off their reticence to list of earlier this year.

Potts, the executive chairman of Blue Ocean Equities financial services company, was widely rumoured to be among the many high-end home owners quietly shopping his house to buyers on the quiet earlier this year before he handed the keys to his grand waterfront residence to BlackDiamondz’s Monika Tu.

The waterfront holding of 1300 square metres was owned by London-based expat comedian Barry Humphries after he bought it in 1986 for $1.75 million and sold it in 1991 for $2.52 million to yachtie John Kirkjian.

The Potts family bought it in 2000 following the sale of their Vaucluse trophy home Cooloongatta for $8.5 million, paying $9 million for the Rose Bay property to mining industry businessman Jack Horseman.

The seven-bedroom, nine-bathroom residence complete with a swimming pool and uninterrupted views to the Harbour Bridge was built in 1928 in the classic Mediterranean style and renovated by architect Michael Suttor during the Horseman family ownership to make it what Ms Tu describes as “one of the most significant Michael Suttor-designed homes on the waterfront”.

The listing comes a month after businessman Michael Zammit and his wife Gail listed their beachfront house in Point Piper for more than $40 million with Bill Malouf, of LJ Hooker Double Bay.

Confidence in Sydney’s trophy home market was buoyed in September when it was revealed the Point Piper waterfront duplex, known as Edgewater, long owned by the  co-founders of the Katies women’s retail clothing chain Joe Brender and the late Sam Moss had sold on the quiet for $95 million to interests linked to businessman John Li.