Lachlan and Sarah Murdoch relist redundant Bronte house in third sale attempt
Media scion Lachlan Murdoch, the co-chair of News Corp and 21st Century Fox, and his wife Sarah have listed their Bronte home for a third time.
The contemporary residence was first listed in 2009 and then 2011.
Agents Ken Jacobs and Darren Curtis of Christie's International have the prestige listing again, this time for June 28 auction.
On its first marketing attempt they were seeking a then overly ambitious $13.5 million sale.
There is no price indication of the website listing of the contemporary home close to Bronte's bustling cafe scene, but a late 2012 sale might give pointers.
Title Tattle recalls it was an unsolicited offer in 2005 that secured the $7.75 million house above Bronte Beach as the Murdochs’ base for their then return to Australia from New York.
It was bought from Graham Ford, the Bronte Surf Club president, who had built it on Bronte Road in 2001.
The Murdochs had been keen for the cosmopolitan beach strip, which represented a change from the Opera House vista from Point Piper where the couple had sold their four-level harbourfront for $20.8 million in March 2005, having paid $12 million in 1999 to the mining magnate Robert Friedland.
Lachlan Murdoch was absent from his father Rupert's company from 2005 until his recent return.
“Coming back to News felt right emotionally for many reasons,” Murdoch said this week.
Le Manoir, Lachlan and Sarah Murdoch's $23 million Georgian estate in Bellevue Hill, currently undergoing an $11.6 million revamp, will become the couple's permanent base, an acquisition made almost five years ago.
In the meantime the Murdoch couple continue their lease on Coolong, the Vaucluse beachfront residence of expats Ivan and Marina Ritossa, which began in early 2010.
It's the house the Murdochs actually wanted before buying Le Manoir.
In 2008 Coolong set the then Sydney residential record, with the late Allco founder David Coe securing $45 million from Ritossa, the global head of foreign exchange at Barclays Capital, through estate agent Bill Bridges and McGrath agent Hamish Robertson.
The Murdoch rental house with private beach dates back to Sir Alexis Albert, from the Boomerang music songbook family, who built on the 4,100-square-metre block in 1936.
The last big Bronte property play was in 2012 when Seumas Dawes, the London-based Australian merchant banker, who sits on the latest Sunday Times Richest 1000 list, and is the chairman of the investment committee at Pepper Investment Management, bought the neighbouring Bronte property.
Title Tattle reported at the time that Dawes had poured some of his £90 net worth into a serious Bronte acquisition. He now sits in equal 739th place with a £124 million net worth on the latest Sunday Times Richest 1000 list, published earlier this month.
The funds manager and his wife Rosemary had initially spent $12.3 million for a large, modern three-storey residence in 2006. It was a modern five-bedroom residence on the ocean side of Bronte Road overlooking the beach and ocean.
Then in 2012, the Dawes couple splashed out with the $16.5 million purchase of the neighbouring house, which they've bulldozed to expand their garden and garaging in grounds prepared by Formed Gardens.
The new works, which include gym and cabana, improve the neighbouring contemporary houses's north eastern aspect in unquestionably one of the most expensive coastal suburbs on the exclusive strip known as The Cutting.