Stockbroker Brent Potts sells $45 million Rose Bay trophy home

The Rose Bay trophy home of veteran stockbroker Brent Potts and his wife Pauline has sold for about $45 million.

The seven-bedroom, nine-bathroom waterfront home, known as Villa Florida, sold this week to an international buyer almost a year after it first hit the market.

Potts, the executive chairman of Blue Ocean Equities financial services company, was widely rumoured to be among the many high-end home owners shopping his house to buyers on the quiet earlier last year before listing the trophy home for more than $45 million with BlackDiamondz’s Monika Tu in October.

Ms Tu declined to reveal the sale price or buyer.

It follows the $45 million sale of Woollahra’s grandest residence, Rosemont last week, by Margot, Lady Burrell, which was the year’s highest house sale and set a new benchmark among Sydney’s trophy homes for a house without a view.

The Rose Bay waterfront holding was previously 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 for $8.5 million, paying $9 million for the Rose Bay property to mining industry businessman Jack Horseman.

The 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 into what Ms Tu described as “one of the most significant Michael Suttor-designed homes on the waterfront”.

She noted that the 1300-square-metre property had drawn about 7000 enquiries over the course of the campaign and strong international interest. More than 50 inspections had been conducted with serious offers made by multiple overseas buyers.

“I think it’s phenomenal,” she said of the state of the prestige market. “There are more enquiries and demand than what you have; there’s just not enough property. The market is booming.”

Other prestige market sales include the $34.5 million sale of a grand Mediterranean-style house in Vaucluse by Andrews Meat wholesaler Peter Andrew and the almost $28 million sale of TV production company boss Bernard Curran’s waterfront Point Piper duplex.