Spotify boss buys $9.5 million former Love Island house in Byron Bay

The run-up to Christmas traditionally sees a run of settlements, so buyers are in their new homes before the break. Take Spotify Australia managing director Mikaela Lancaster and her partner, iflix founder Mark Britt, who took the keys to their new holiday home for $9.5 million this week.

The star location of last year’s Love Island Australia reality TV show sold for $9.5 million.Credit: Domain

Mikaela Lancaster, managing director of Spotify Australia, bought in Byron Bay’s hinterland.

The couple have bought Byron Bay’s landmark Amileka property, the 10 hectare getaway in Federal that starred as the backdrop to last year’s reality TV show Love Island Australia.

The striking Sharon Fraser-designed property was initially listed with a guide of $11.5 million to $12.5 million by McGrath’s Nick Dunn on behalf of Kingscliff-based property investor Sarah Johnson. She paid $3.5 million for it in 2015 from The Farm founder Emma and Tom Lane, of the Oroton accessories family.

Lancaster and Britt are Inner West locals, based in Croydon, and sold their former Pittwater getaway at Clareville early this year for $10.25 million to art collector and Dakota Capital chairman Danny Goldberg.

Still in Byron Bay, TripADeal co-founder Richard Johnston has purchased Temple Byron for $4.375 million.

The healing retreat centre with Mongolian yurt hit the market a year ago with $10 million guide, but dropped to $8.5 million a few months later and $5.5 million in August.

TripaDeal co-founders Norm Black (left) and Richard Johnston (right) sold a majority stake in the company to Qantas earlier this year.Credit: Natalie Grono

Johnston and Norm Black founded their online holiday booking site TripADeal 11 years ago and sold a 51 per cent stake to Qantas in May for an undisclosed amount.

Still with the settlements, Vogue Australia editor-in-chief Edwina McCann and her investment manager husband David Basha finally closed the sale of their Rose Bay home.

It was an off-market sale, with the only rumoured agent involved, One Buyers Agency’s Jayden Hurvitz, keeping quiet about the result.

Edwina McCann and David Basha have sold their Rose Bay home for $11.5 million.Credit: Ken Butti

Records show an $11.5 million settlement, more than doubling the $5.6 million they paid for it in 2016.

The buyer is advertising big wig Michael Rebelo, Australia chief executive at French multinational ad and PR giant Publicis Groupe, and deputy chair of the Advertising Council of Australia.

Rebelo and his wife Danniel are coming from Paddington, where Maclay Longhurst has already sold their terrace for $4 million.

In Woollahra, Charlotte MacKenzie, wife of private equity boss Adrian MacKenzie, has settled on a $9 million house, presumably to live in given an upcoming renovation of their historic Bellevue Hill home.

McKenzie’s new digs is the former home of Sphere Infrastructure’s Charles Crane and Camilla Green, sold by The Agency’s Ben Collier.

It last traded two years ago for $4.57 million.

The McKenzies bought a Palm Beach weekender two years ago for $11.5 million from Shay Lewis-Thorp.

Mosman’s pricey parking

Parking meter magnate Phillip Verity sold his Mosman waterfront house late Friday, prompting fevered talk locally of a result close to $19 million.

The Beauty Point home of parking meter entrepreneur Phillip Verity has sold.

Ray White Lower North Shore’s Bernard Ryan and Geoff Smith refused to be drawn on the speculation, despite having only recently taken over the listing.

The Beauty Point residence last traded for $12.5 million in 2018 when sold by RAMS Home Loans co-founder John Kinghorn, who at the time was downsizing to his $10.22 million spread in the Watermarque building on Mosman Bay.

The looming end of year deadline also saw a sold sticker go up on the Killara home of Judo Bank chief and co-founder Joseph Healy.

McGrath’s Glenn Curran wouldn’t divulge the result, but it was expected to go for close to the $11 million guide, doubling the $5.5 million Healy and his wife Susan paid for it a decade ago.

Chin Chin to Point Piper

The One Point Piper apartment purchased by Chris Lucas for $11.7 million.Credit: Domain

Is it just coincidence that Melbourne’s star restaurateur Chris Lucas has marked last weekend’s election win by Victoria’s Labor Premier Dan Andrews by buying $11.7 million digs in Sydney’s eastern suburbs?

Restaurateur Chris Lucas sold in Potts Point for $5.1 million.Credit: Louis Trerise

Certainly, the entrepreneur behind Melbourne’s Kisumé and Chin Chin restaurants has been a fierce critic of the Andrews government’s COVID lockdown measures, although his Chin Chin Sydney restaurant in Surry Hills might explain the purchase.

The apartment in the K2 Property development of Eric Koundouris, One Point Piper, was sold to Lucas recently by Highland Property’s David Malouf, and comes on the back of the restaurateur’s $5.1 million sale of his Potts Point bolthole.

Woolwich fine dining

Former restaurateur Jason Tait and his wife Kelli Haynes, who for years owned Sailors Thai at Circular Quay, have bought the Woolwich waterfront home of professional punter Lincoln Holgate.

McGrath boss John McGrath did the auction honours for Tracey Dixon on the day, dropping the hammer on a more than $20 million result.

Holgate and his wife Anica built the contemporary five-bedroom residence four years ago, having purchased it from former Sydney lord mayor Nelson Meers and his wife Carole in 2009 for $8.5 million.

The Woolwich residence was bought by former restaurateur Jason Tait and his wife Kelli Haynes.

Tait, who founded the cloud property management software system PropertyMe, is trading up from the Millers Point terrace he bought with Haynes 20 years ago for $2.29 million.

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