Peak Sydney: House bought in 1978 for $325,000 resold for more than $80m

An off-market bid to sell the Point Piper mansion Rockleigh in recent years has finally landed a buyer willing to pay between $80 million and $85 million, ranking it in the top five house sales in Sydney.

Cashing in on one of the most expensive house sales in the country is medical specialist Philippa Harvey-Sutton, who inherited the property from her mother Val Rundle in 2016.

The Point Piper property Rockleigh has sold on the quiet for more than $80 million.Credit: James Brickwood

The family have owned the property for 46 years, purchasing it for $325,000 in 1978. Census data from that time shows Sydney’s median house price was then $43,200.

Details on the latest sale of Rockleigh have been shrouded in secrecy since buyers were first shown through more than a year ago, and only spilled onto the prestige market rumour mill on Friday.

Independent sources say the sale is expected at more than $80 million on a long settlement.

It was listed originally with $100 million hopes in an off-market campaign that involved no public marketing and no open inspections given the downsizing plans of Harvey-Sutton and her husband, retired lawyer Alistair Harvey-Sutton.

Rockleigh has sold for almost $85 million after an off-market campaign that involved no public marketing.Credit: Domain

Rockleigh was previously owned by printer, publisher and politician Frederick Pratten, who was a Liberal member of state parliament until 1959 when he defected to the Country Party.

Pratten died in 1977, and his widow Helen Pratten sold it the following year to Harvey-Sgutton’s parents, the late medical doctor Philip Rundle and his wife Val, the latter of whom died in 2016 aged 90.

At the time the Rundles purchased Rockleigh they were trading up from the Leslie Wilkinson-designed trophy home around the corner on Wentworth Street that is now owned by Museum of Contemporary Art chair Lorraine Tarabay and investment banker Nick Langley.

Sydney’s trophy home market has been on drip feed of sales in recent years, despite some impressive listings - take a bow “Aussie John” Symond and your $200 million-plus home in Point Piper.

The only house sales in Sydney to top Rockleigh are all in Point Piper. The highest is $130 million paid by tech billionaire Scott Farquhar for Uig Lodge, $100 million for the Fairwater estate of Farquhar’s Atlassian co-founder Mike Cannon-Brookes and the $95 million sale of Edgewater mansion by gold mining businessman John Changjin Li.

The Elizabeth Bay residence Boomerang was sold by the family of trucking billionaire Lindsay Fox late last year for about $80 million, and is yet to settle.