Tech billionaire Scott Farquhar sells Point Piper’s Elaine estate for about $130m

Tech billionaire Scott Farquhar has again clocked up one of the highest house price sales in the country, this week selling his beachfront estate in Point Piper for roughly $130 million.

This is the grand estate of almost 7000 square metres that Farquhar purchased in 2017 from John Brehmer Fairfax for what was then a national house price record of $71 million.

It was momentous sale at the time not only because of the result, but because the 1863-built residence had been home to one of the world’s longest-running media dynasties since Geoffrey Evan Fairfax bought it in 1891 for £2100.

The exact sale figure remains unknown, but Forbes Global Properties’ Ken Jacobs was known to be showing buyers through the property as recently as a week ago.

Jacobs declined to comment when approached on Friday, but a well-placed source who missed out on the purchase said an initial asking price of $120 million was raised to $130 million before it sold.

Interested parties have since been told the property is no longer on the market.

Pillinger’s Brad Pillinger also made no comment, despite being tipped to be party to the deal.

A spokeswoman from Farquhar’s office is yet to respond to queries at the time of publication.

Farquhar recently stepped down as co-chief executive of the software giant Atlassian that he co-founded with Mike Cannon-Brookes.

Farquhar was ranked the fifth richest person on this year’s AFR Rich List 200, with an estimated worth of $22.88 billion.

Farquhar already holds the national house price record, set at $130 million in late 2022 for the nearby Scottish baronial mansion, Uig Lodge, from rag traders Steven and Carol Moss.

The most expensive residential deal is a $140 million apartment atop Lendlease’s Residences One tower at Barangaroo, but that is a consolidation of two apartments, the penthouse and sub-penthouse. It is yet to settle.

If Farquhar ever lived in Elaine, it was only briefly. When it sold in 2017 it had approval for a six-part subdivision, and state heritage protection had been denied given many additions and alterations during the Fairfax family’s 126 years ownership.

In 2020, three years after Farquhar purchased it, he lodged plans to re-amalgamate the estate as a single family residence, thereby protecting the gardens, century-old trees and original stables in the process.

“When we bought the property in 2017 we were determined to do everything we could to keep it as one site,” Mr Farquhar told the Sydney Morning Herald at the time.

Lead and asbestos throughout the house were removed a couple of years later, leaving parts of the house a shell of the original mansion.

The 1950s and 1970s additions were to be demolished as part of a planned redesign announced by Farquhar’s office, but a formal sitting room with ornate leadlight windows, twin arches, a bay window and detailed plaster ceilings retained in place.

A three-level residence with a distinctive curved and translucent façade designed by Rome-based Australian architect Carl Pickering and his partner Claudio Lazzarini that was to be built into the original footprint of the home was touted, but never lodged with council given a neighbour’s objection.

Its latest resale is a jump in value of more than 80 per cent, and will incur a stamp duty of more than $9 million.