Media boss Antony Catalano quietly buys $9 million Byron Bay house
It might be a quiet time for prestige real estate with most high rollers living their best European summer lives, but that has not stopped Antony Catalano, executive chairman of Australian Community Media, from rolling ahead with his Byron Bay expansion plans.
The Cat, who is currently overseas and formerly chief executive of Domain Group, has emerged as the buyer of a block of land with a humble home that set him back $9 million earlier in the year to add to his existing Wategos portfolio.
Antony Catalano’s latest Byron Bay property purchase.
It backs onto his more than 4000 square metres of land in Brownell Drive, the largest landholding in Wategos, that he bought in 2021 for just over $24.7 million.
The real estate maverick has a penchant for the neighbourhood, as his latest property purchase is a stone’s throw away from his Instagram-popular venue Rae’s on Wategos, which he bought for a reported sum of $14 million in two tranches and plans on expanding in town with property developer Podia.
The 56-year-old has already submitted a development application to the Byron Shire Council to build a family home and guest houses on the Wategos bush block to accommodate his growing family as they have become more involved with his hotel and restaurant business.
Antony Catalano is the former boss of Domain Group.Credit: AFR
It is quite the upgrade, as he previously owned another residence on the same street. He sold Larimar, a five-bedroom house for $3 million in 2020, making a paper profit of $650,000 on the home that he first picked up in 2007.
But his son Jordan Catalano, managing director of Raes and AD Group, which specialises in selling off-the-plan apartments, decided to move in next door even after his dad sold out, buying the adjacent home with his wife Jessica Catalano for $3,552,000 in December 2021.
It comes as Catalano senior and his wife Stefanie sold their St Kilda West, Melbourne residence, earlier this year for a suburb breaking record of $15.5 million.
Tickets, please
Taronga Zoo director Simon Duffy has listed his converted tramway substation home in Rozelle with a guide of $3.7 million.
The historic Balmain Tramway Substation has been converted into a four-bedroom home.Credit:
The 1907-built industrial building is billed as the last remaining structure of its kind in the state, and comes after it has been refashioned into a four-bedroom home complete with its original “finishes”.
Duffy, who became a headline in his own right last November when he was briefing media on the sensational escape of lions from the Mosman zoo, purchased the property in 2020 for $2.9 million.
The three-level home is listed with BresicWhitney’s Chris Nunn given the Duffy family plans to downsize in the inner west.
Go off the grid
The two-bedroom Springwood house sits among the gum trees of Blue Mountains National Park.Credit:
In the Blue Mountains, lawyer, inventor and music technology expert Peter Vogel is selling his off-grid Springwood oasis.
Vogel, who was described by New Scientist magazine as one of “three men who changed the sound of music”, developed at the age of 23 with his school friend Kim Ryrie, the world’s first commercial sound sampling electronic musical instrument, the Fairlight CMI.
During the 80s, Fairlight was used by many of the world’s leading recording superstars, including Stevie Wonder, Kate Bush, Herbie Hancock and most of the other big names of that time.
Vogel, who bought the 4222-square-metre block for a mere $36,500 in 1981, used the self-sufficient property as a weekender.
“I went there on weekends as a complete getaway because it’s completely off-grid. It’s a kilometre to the nearest neighbour but only a five-minute drive to town,” he said.
The solar-powered home with panoramic views of Blue Mountains National Park is guided at $820,000.
It is being sold through McGrath Double Bay’s Michael Finger and McGrath Lower Blue Mountains’ Stewart Lamont.
Finger said it was a good opportunity for buyers: “Try to buy something like that in Sydney and you’d pay $40 million.”
Big apple calling
The five-bedroom, two-bedroom house at Manly has a guide of $11.25 million.Credit:
Banking and finance lawyer Richard Hayes, who was a partner of K&I Gates until recently, has listed his waterfront Manly home for $11.25 million after taking up a new post at a New York law firm.
Hayes, who was previously a partner at King & Wood Mallesons, bought the exclusive harbourfront property for $5.71 million in 2016.
This tightly held circa 1920s character home has been faithfully restored and is placed on 540-square-metres of award-winning landscaped designed gardens, which overlooks Manly Cove to yacht-sprinkled North Harbour.
It is jointly being sold through Jake Rowe of The Agency and Laura Pritchard of Bergelin Property.
Waterfront winners
The two-bedroom Kirribilli unit has front seat views of Sydney Harbour.Credit:
Nanuk Asset Management co-founder and Museum of Contemporary Art board member Ivan Wheen and his wife Karel have purchased a waterfront apartment in Kirribilli for what sources say is more than $12 million.
The apartment of the late Peter Taubman, of the Taubman paint family, is up the road from the Wheens’ long-held waterfront home, and was sold soon after it was listed with a guide of more than $12 million.