Actor Toni Collette changes her mind over Paddo and buys again in Bronte: Title Tattle

Academy Award-nominated actor Toni Collette, the star of the TV series United States of Tara, and her musician husband, David Galafassi, are set to stay at Bronte ... and not move to Paddington. The couple had decided mid-last year that rather than undertake an expensive Bronte renovation, they’d buy elsewhere. They quickly secured a $6 million Paddington property, but then struggled to find a buyer for their redundant unrenovated hillside house. Their 1885 Bronte weatherboard cottage that cost $4.4 million in mid-2009 was tipped to sell for around $3.5 million through its McGrath Estate Agents listing agent Bethwyn Richards. When the buyer finally came along just before Christmas, it seems the entertainment industry couple decided to do a tidy swap deal.

They bought their buyer’s own house in Bronte, which was topped up by some cash given the price difference. The location and price of their newly acquired Bronte house has not yet emerged, but Title Tattle, disguised as a forgotten umbrella at a recent open for inspection, gleans it was the $5.5 million house that the Turnbull family have sold  through Di Jones agents Catherine Dixon and Louise Snowden. Title Tattle loves the gum tree on the very private 1,100-square-metre hillside estate. Meanwhile the double-fronted Paddington purchase – which was bought from Nick and Susie Kelly, the founders and owners of Industrie clothing – seems now set to be relisted once all the intertwined settlement resolution issues are finalised. It had been snapped at an undisclosed price – but understood to be slightly more than $6 million quite early in its October marketing campaign by McGrath agent Ben Collier. Designed by architect Anthony Gill and completed in 2009, the five-bedroom, four-bathroom house on a 360-square-metre block was a record for the southern side of Oxford Street, Paddington. Consisting of two classic Victorian terraces combined into a palatial single residence, the contemporary tri-level family retreat had been reinvented to embrace light flooded indoor/outdoor living. The two terraces cost $2.15 million in 2003 and $1.865 million in 2005.

Collette and Galafassi, parents of baby son Arlo and three-year-old daughter Sage, recently stayed in Bronte but rented the redundant house of media tycoon Lachlan Murdoch and his wife, model Sarah, which remains for sale through Christies International.

Expatriate Tim Throsby, the global head of equity derivatives at J. P.Morgan, has listed his Darling Point apartment. The six-bedroom, four-bathroom apartment is in the 1915 Babworth House (pictured above and below), a grand Arts and Crafts-style mansion that was adapted into apartments 10 years ago. Babworth House was built as the home of retailer Sir Samuel Hordern. Spanning three levels, the apartment includes the original panelled ballroom. It last traded at $8.1 million in 2006 when sold by Phil and Ann-Maree Kerry, and $8 million plus was being sought on its brief 2010 listing.

After a tip-off on its availability from Title Tattle, the then Channel Nine boss Eddie McGuire and his wife, Carla, rented the apartment during their Sydney sojourn. In 2006, learning quickly of the divide between the north shore and eastern suburbs in Sydney, McGuire sought to rent in the east, while working in Willoughby. His neighbours included the late executive chairman of Macquarie Bank, David Clarke, and his wife, Jane, the late longtime Walt Disney product licensee Walter Granger and his wife, Joy, and the director of Argo Investments, Robert Rich, and his wife, Helen. The apartment has been listed through Raine & Horne Double Bay agents Martin Maskin and Michael Pallier. Throsby and his wife, Helen, spent $5.6 million to upgrade their Bilgola retreat to a beachfront property, Cobblestones, in 2010.