A passion for property
Atlassian’s Mike Cannon-Brookes has cast his net wide in building a portfolio of impressive homes.
At the age of only 41, billionaire Mike Cannon-Brookes may have already amassed the most impressive collection of trophy homes in Australia. Just about every salubrious Sydney suburb or regional playground for the rich and famous is included in the dozen properties he has bought, which combined have a stunning value of more than $250 million.
Think Point Piper, where Cannon-Brookes owns several mansions. There’s Woollahra and Double Bay too, not to mention Newport and Palm Beach on Sydney’s northern beaches. Great Mackerel Beach as well, slightly further north and more discreet.
Then there are the expansive rural retreats in the Southern Highlands, a couple of hours out of Sydney.
There would not be another billionaire on The List – Australia’s Richest 250 who has collected expensive trophy homes at the rate Cannon-Brookes and his wife Annie have.
The tech titan co-founded software firm Atlassian with his long-time friend Scott Farquhar, and while the company is listed on the NASDAQ exchange in the US they have chosen to keep its headquarters in Sydney. Which would at least give Cannon-Brookes some time to enjoy the mansions he has mostly purchased just in the past five years.
Atlassian has been a stunning success since he and Farquhar started the business after meeting at the University of NSW. The 2015 NASDAQ float has catapulted them into the ranks of the very wealthiest people in the country and given them plenty of spare cash to invest.
Cannon-Brookes has dozens of tech and environmentally friendly investments. But he clearly also has a penchant for luxury property. He and his family live at Fairwater, a Point Piper mansion set on 1.12ha estate and described in heritage records as “medieval and Queen Anne inspired”. It was built in 1881, though there have been improvements since, and was held by the Fairfax family for more than 100 years. Cannon-Brookes paid a record $100 million for the property in late 2018, making it Australia’s most expensive house and far eclipsing the $71 million Farquhar had earlier paid for the house next door.
In April last year, a little more than six months after that record purchase, Cannon-Brookes shelled out another $12 million for a house that backs onto Fairwater. Set one house back from the beach, the mansion once known as St Mervyns has four bedrooms and a swimming pool.
But that price is relatively small compared to other properties Cannon-Brookes has since bought. A few months after St Mervyns deal, he paid $15 million for a 155ha property in the NSW Southern Highlands. One of the largest landholdings in the region, Widgee Waa was called the “Point Piper of the Southern Highlands” by the selling agents due to its size and grazing quality. It has cattle farming infrastructure, equestrian facilities and a manager’s cottage.
That buy came after a $5.35 million purchase the previous year of the nearby 45ha Rosehill Farm, which has a homestead designed by Richard Rowe with interiors styled by Coco Republic, as well as English-style walled garden areas that include an orchard, vegetable gardens and a croquet lawn. The family already owned a Highland farm, Joadja Creek, bought for $3.3 million in 2016.
While those are extensive rural holdings, there are far more mansions in Cannon-Brookes’ name back in Sydney, most of them clustered around the prestige harbourside suburbs or the northern beaches.
In August, he was revealed as the $24.5 million buyer of the Koichi Takada-designed Newport trophy home previously owned by model Jennifer Hawkins. The prime holding of 3360sq m of beachfront land was an amalgamation of adjoining blocks, on which stands a five-bedroom home with a central sandstone feature wall and other vast glass walls overlooking a swimming pool, private boathouse and the western foreshores of Pittwater.
Cannon-Brookes has previous form in the area, having spent $8.7 million in 2013 to buy a six-bedroom, eight-bathroom house set on 1107sq m in Palm Beach.
More recently, and in another August transaction this year, he paid about $2.3 million for a private getaway at Great Mackerel Beach further up the NSW coast. The area, known for its natural beauty and absence of cars, is more discreet than the flashier Palm Beach.
Closer to the city, another big purchase this year was his $18 million buy of the former official residence of the German consul-general in Woollahra. That transaction set a record for the suburb, though Annie Cannon-Brookes is reportedly expected to use the vast 2000sq m property as an office and studio for her House of Cannon fashion enterprise.
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