'Elaine' becomes Australia's most expensive home

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May 1, 2017

'Elaine' becomes Australia's most expensive home

Point Piper waterfront estate, 'Elaine', has been sold to Atlassian founder Scott Farquhar for around $75 million, the highest price ever paid for a single Australian home.

Image: The Australian Financial Review.
Scott Farquhar, founder of Atlassian.

It seems fitting that Australia's most expensive home has changed hands from a newspaper family, the Fairfaxes, to an IT entrepreneur, Scott Farquhar.

Farquhar, who has been living in a two-bedroom Pyrmont apartment up until now, founded the global technology company Atlassian with Mike Cannon-Brookes in 2002. The company is now listed on the US stock exchange and the two are said to be worth $4.6 billion.

'Elaine' is owned by John Brehmer Fairfax, and the home has been in his family for 126 years. Fairfax sought, and received, approval to subdivide the block. However, it has been reported that he knocked back a number of offers higher than the $75 million offer received from Farquhar, because the prospective buyer's intention was to split up the site.

Farquhar intends to preserve the site as a single block.

The previous highest price paid for an Australian home was $70 million paid for James Packer's Vaucluse home. Menulog founder Leon Kamenev bought four houses in Vaucluse for just less than $80 million last year.

The selling agent was Ken Jacobs of Christie's International.