Cyber-rich Daniel Petre swaps Sydney's upper north shore for the lower: Title Tattle

The redundant twee Woollahra abode (pictured above) of author and political commentator Peter van Onselen and his wife, Ainslie van Onselen, has been sold pre-auction for $1.1 million through McGrath estate agent Ben Collier. The historic two-bedroom Victorian gingerbread house on Waimea Avenue had been expected to fetch about $1 million having been bought for $720,000 in 2005.

Retired car dealer Laurie Sutton has spent $8.85 million to buy one of the Rockwall, Potts Point penthouses. It was bought from CBD Business Systems director Bill Smith, who had bought it for $5,775,000 in 2005 from Virginia Carmichael.

Sutton and his wife, Di, have their long-time Mosman harbourfront house listed for sale. In 2007 they bought in Darling Point from the nightclub entrepreneur Barry Wain, paying $18.5 million through Agency by Alison Coopes for a Katsura Imperial Villa-inspired Michael Dysart-designed house which has eight-car garaging.

Smith has bought in The Residence in East Sydney.

Art collectors Dr David Rosenthal and Professor Doreen Rosenthal have sold their spacious Malvern home (pictured above), which has doubled as their private gallery for more than 40 years. The classic Victorian on Winter Street is almost a work of art in itself, with the four-bedroom house boasting period features such as ornate ceilings, marble fireplaces, a double-arched hall and a hand-painted stained-glass entrance. At the back of the corner block is a 894-square-metre north-facing garden, a heated swimming pool and a workshop-studio. When the Rosenthals moved in 45 years ago the property had been a family-run boarding house. They turned it into a family home and live-in art gallery. It sat on the market after Marshall White put it to August auction and has since sold through estate agent Dean Gilbert after being initially listed post-auction at $2.95 million and then at $2.59 million hopes.

Wine industry entrepreneur Russell Leslie, a former director of Macquarie Group, and his wife, Katrina, the executive chairman of recruitment company HRX, have listed Warraroong, their redundant Hunter Valley estate.

The Lovedale property comes with stunning faux Georgian-style Claremont house (pictured above), which has commanding views of the Brokenback range since being built about two decades ago.

The property has been listed for sale by Alan Jurd at Jurds Real Estate with offers due November 3 with interest expected to be above $1.5 million plus stock.

Originally established by the Fraser family and known for many years as Fraser Estate, the property was renamed Warraroong by former McDonalds executive Tim Tighe some 12 years ago.

Warraroong has a land area of 15 hectares, of which more than half is planted to premium vineyard.

There is a cellar door sales building (pictured above) and a four-bedroom self-contained guest house known as The Winemakers Cottage.

The Leslies will centre their main vineyard operations at their recently acquired beautiful Wandin Valley Estate in Lovedale.

The former McDonald's executive Tim Tighe, now the chairman of QSR Holdings, is seeking about $12 million for his Bayview waterfront estate on Pittwater in Sydney’s Bayview (pictured above). The 3,482 –square-metre estate comes with deep-water jetty, pontoon, berth and slipway. It has been listed through LJ Hooker Avalon agent Claudio Marcolongo since July. There have been previous attempts to sell the dual properties, the first of which was bought in 1999 for $2.9 million and the adjoining property added in 2005 at a cost of $2,715,000.

Roy Laidlaw from Macquarie Group and his wife Hilary have sold their redundant Palm Beach retreat, which was listed through David Edwards at LJ Hooker Palm Beach. They secured $4 million for the four-bedroom, four-bathroom Pacific Road house, last traded at $2.15 million in 2000. It looks out towards Pittwater. The Laidlaws have listed Palm Beach, given the completion of the rebuild at their $7.3 million beachfront on Barrenjoey Road.

Stephen Lewis, the managing director of Continental Kosher Butchers, which was established in 1945 in Melbourne, has sold his three-bedroom contemporary Brighton East house (pictured above), which had been listed through Nick Johnstone of Nick Johnstone Real Estate. It sold before auction for $1 million. Continental is the largest kosher butcher in the southern hemisphere.

Corterre Park (pictured above), the Provence-style house in the NSW Southern Highlands of the former Mariner Corporation boss Bill Ireland, has been sold. It was initially tipped to fetch more than $8 million on its mid-2010 listing, but is understood to have sold through Drew Lindsay of Drew Lindsay Real Estate Bowral at closer to its recent $6.5 million asking price. It is likely to be the highest price achieved for the region this year, bettering the reputed $5.3 million plus sale of The Chase at Sutton Forrest. The Mittagong property was the highest recorded Southern Highlands acreage house sale when it fetched $5.15 million in 2003. It has views towards Sydney and the Blue Mountains from its 21-hectare Range Road position.

The founder and managing director of Industrie clothing, Nick Kelly, and his wife, Susie, who bought a $15.5 million Vaucluse residence earlier this year, have sold their twin Paddington terraces (pictured above). Designed by architect Anthony Gill and completed in 2009, the Stewart Street property is a combination of two adjoining six-metre-wide terraces.  McGrath agent Ben Collier had $6 million hopes for the five-bedroom, four-bathroom house on 360 square metres, and while the price has not been revealed the final buying activity was around $6.4 million. The site was consolidated in two purchases – in 2003 and 2005 – that totalled $4,015,000.

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Melbourne bookmaker Mark Read and wife Shari have snappily sold their sub-penthouse in the Westin hotel in Melbourne (pictured above). It had been listed with a $7 million asking price through Dingle Partners agent Anton Wongtrakun. It was marketed as among the finest apartments in Melbourne's CBD, set on a north-eastern corner in the Grocon-built complex above Melbourne's five-star Westin hotel. The 420-square-metre 11th floor apartment comes with a double-height lobby, five bedrooms, five limestone bathroom and a study. Read has yet to sell Beauty Falls, his Queensland acreage at Cooroy Mountain.

Title Tattle aims to tell you as soon as we know – often before it happens –so the word from Palm Beach is that former Brierley Investments Ltd chairman Bruce Hancox and his wife, Judy are listing their the Balinese-style retreat on Snapperman Beach. The two-storey, four-bedroom Lee Hillam-designed house, with separate guest quarters and views across Pittwater, was finished in 2003. It stands on 525 square metres in Iluka Road, with a garden between the two living quarters. It’s presumably going to have $6.75 million expectations through David Edwards at LJ Hooker, given they paid $5.65 million in 2006 to the property developer Andrew Richardson.

And don’t say that Title Tattle told you but Daniel Petre, the philanthrophic former Microsoft executive, and wife Carolyn have sold their longtime Killara residence, Deepdene (pictured above). Details of the reputed $12 million sale have been the most tightly held property secret in Sydney – virtually untraceable until now.

Some paperwork has only emerged after the now known buyer Anita Cunliffe lodged $1.92 million renovation plans for the 5,533-square-metre heritage-listed upper north shore property. The Petres offered extended settlement terms, with the first rumors of the June 2010 sale coming to Title Tattle late last year. The bungalow-style Deepdene, with its grass tennis court, was built in 1924, some 25 years after the local railway station opened. It was designed by the architect James Peddle for farm machinery manufacturer George Virtue.

In the meantime the Petres have bought on Sydney’s lower north shore, buying Alta Mura, the 1886 Lavender Bay mansion from Clive Steirn SC and his wife, Marilyn. Richard Harding and Geoff Smith at LJ Hooker expected more than $7 million in early 2010, but the Alta Mura sale documents show $6.4 million on its settlement last month. The four-bedroom house, which sits on a 764-square-metre block with Peter Fudge-designed parterre gardens, last traded in 1987 for $650,000 when bought by the Steirns.

Petre was one of the most visible members of Sydney's cyber-rich fraternity in the 1980s and 1990s, especially when he was the executive chairman of Ecorp, the internet arm of Kerry Packer's PBL, which operated Ninemsm, in partnership with Petre's previous employer, Microsoft.