Abbotsford estate bought by BigCommerce's Eddie Machaalani leads suburb records

A waterfront estate in Abbotsford owned by the Bowes family for almost 80 years has sold, sparking widespread speculation that it has reset records for the inner west.

Sources put the sale result at between $24 million and $25 million, which is so out of line with trophy home sales across the inner west that it is best left to settlement to confirm if the house on the Parramatta River is indeed among the most expensive outside the eastern suburbs.

The buyer, however, is no mystery.

Eddie Machaalani, 42, is the co-founder of one of the world’s largest e-commerce software companies, BigCommerce, alongside fellow former young rich lister Mitchell Harper.

The duo went into business together in 2003 building products to help businesses build websites and intranets from an office above a mobile phone shop in Rozelle, and founded BigCommerce six years later.

Machaalani and his wife Micheline are Earlwood locals, for now, in contemporary digs purchased in 2014 for $1.87 million, and their home upgrade plans were only revealed when they lodged a caveat on the title of the Bowes family’s long-held home.

The last time the waterfront estate – comprised of three titles totalling 2750 square metres with a swimming pool – sold was in 1944 for £4000 when purchased by Frederick and Winifred Bowes. It was passed to their son Warwick in 1991.

The inner west record was last set six months ago at $15 million when bookshop owner Jay Lansdown and his wife Fiona sold their Balmain East waterfront home on a comparatively puny 690 square metres to Angus White of the Fairfax newspaper family.

In turn, Lansdown took his money to Annandale to buy $8.7 million digs.

This year’s extraordinary property boom has seen a spike in the number of suburb records set, predominantly in lifestyle areas where buyers have tipped the balance in favour of space rather than a short commute.

Palm Beach’s $27 million purchase is the case in point, where restaurant entrepreneur John Szangolies set a record for the north shore, but there were also records in Narrabeen ($8 million), Bayview ($16 million) and Scotland Island ($8 million), the latter thanks to Mike Cannon-Brookes.

Seaforth scored a new high of about $17 million this week when Atlas’s Michael Coombs sold the newly constructed residence of Nick Manettas, of the seafood empire family, smashing the $12.67 million set by power tools wholesaler David “eBay man” Mills in 2018.

Boost Juice founder and Survivor contestant Janine Allis and her husband Jeff swapped their $22 million Toorak mansion and a $10 million Victorian coast getaway to buy in Sydney, paying $14.5 million for the Bilgola Beach house of mining executive Mark Lochtenberg.

Oil and gas multimillionaire Russell Staley and his wife Jennifer pocketed $15 million for Collaroy’s most expensive house from Boston Consulting Group managing director Brad Noakes, who in turn took $12.6 million for his mansion in Mosman’s Clifton Gardens.

The north shore has picked up more suburb gongs than any region, with suburb records in Willoughby ($6.5 million), Riverview ($6 million), Linley Point ($7.65 million), Greenwich (circa $13.5 million), Duffys Forest ($14 million), Northwood ($24 million) and Domain chairman Nick Falloon’s Longueville house for about $14 million.

Reclusive billionaire David Teoh and his wife Vicky bought Chatswood’s Hiawatha mansion for $10.2 million, and Sam “Chinese Gatsby” Guo is set to farewell Hunters Hill’s Windermere estate for almost $20 million from pub baron Sean O’Hara.

Cyber security entrepreneur and global head of strategy at Trustwave Nick Ellsmore and his wife Skye Ellsmore have set an $8.5 million Lane Cove record buying the Federation house Kermadec that was built in 1906 for Australia’s seventh prime minister Billy Hughes.

The modernist-style residence of the late television legend Brian Henderson was sold by his widow Mardi for a Middle Cove high. Christie’s Ken Jacobs will not disclose the result, but it sold within the $11.5 million to $12.5 million guide.

The word from Mosman is that it was bought by former PwC consulting partner Neil Livesey and his wife, Cognizant Australia chief Jane Livesey, who are trading over from their recently sold $16 million house.

In Castle Cove, a designer estate designed by Terroir architect Chris Rogers came $50,000 away from topping the suburb’s $15.05 million high when it was bought by property investor Guirong Zhang, a business associate and flatmate of regular property trader Jacky Cheung, of Swell Trading.

The upper north shore saw records in North Turramurra ($9.75 million), Roseville ($13.8 million) and Killara (more than $16 million), and former Penrith Panthers player Lou Zivanovic set an $11 million benchmark for Dural.

The eastern suburbs market was stunned as Kerry-Anne Kennerley sold her long-held Woollahra home for $22 million, and stunned again when the local trophy home Rosemont was sold for $45 million by Margot, Lady Burrell to Balmain Corporation chief Andrew Griffin.

Paddington followed at $12 million thanks to the selling plans of Sydney Airport chief Geoff Culbert and his wife Emma Ward.

The Agency’s Ben Collier didn’t set a Bronte high when he sold Simon Baker and Rebecca Rigg’s home for $17 million, but did a month later when blockchain start-up co-founders Joanne Way Yee Huynh and Dorjee Sun bought the home of Colinton Capital’s Simon Moore for $23.3 million.

Almost all the eastern beaches did well this year, from Maroubra ($14 million), Clovelly ($13.5 million), North Bondi ($22 million), Tamarama (more than $25 million) and South Coogee at $16.85 million when Finder’s co-founder Fred Schebesta bought “Coogee Castle”.

It remains unknown if stockbroker Brent Potts sold his residence Villa Florida for a Rose Bay record to Coverforce founder Jim Angelis given settlement is yet to reveal if it secured the $45 million asking price, and mystery has long surrounded the exact sale price of billionaire Brett Blundy’s nearby home he sold in 2018.

One of Forest Lodge’s oldest houses proved a winner at $4.62 million thanks to the restoration plans of software developer Vito Belgiorno-Zegna and his interior architect wife Kate. Toilet paper tycoon Sunny Ngai scored what sources say is $8.5 million in Breakfast Point after a three-week campaign by Breakfast Point Realty’s Alison Beveridge. And Spotify Australia’s head Mikaela Lancaster and her iflix founder partner Mark Britt are trading Pittwater for $4.75 million digs in Croydon.

South of Sydney, records were few on the ground, with the exception of Sandringham ($8.38 million), Yowie Bay ($8.1 million) and on the edge of the Royal National Park in Bundeena lawyer Greg Walsh sold for $7.65 million.