Brouhaha in Bronte

Clare Strang & Matt Handbury

Bronte House, built in 1838 is a magnificent National Trust property owned by the local council. It's sweeping lawns cascade down a slope and join the park that backs onto the quaint Bronte Beach noted for it's trendy cafes frequented by many of the young elites that live in the Eastern Suburbs.
Bronte House's most recent tenant, Matt Handbury, a nephew of media tycoon Rupert Murdoch has just relinquished his lease after a number of years living there.
Before Handbury Sydney style expert Leo Schofield resided there and gave some pretty good parties. One which Whispers attended was a birthday bash for the late painter Margaret Olley where the entertainment featured the world famous artists Richard Tognetti on violin and Simon Tedeschi on piano.
Now Bronte House is up for lease again - one of the provisos for a pepper corn rent is that the beautiful gardens must be opened to the public for a certain number of days and the tenant is responsible fo r upkeep &repairs which can be pretty pricey.
Green's councilor, the exotically named Dominci Darugland Boondi Boondi Wy Kanak (pictured left) is demanding that confidential documents relating to the tenancy be revealed to the general public. Fellow Waverley councilors are resisting Kanak's request claiming that the papers contain confidential financial information about previous tenants.
Meanwhile Handbury who is boss of Murdoch Magazines with his HQ based on a wharf on Sydney Harbour is looking for new digs. Worth an estimated $370M he & wife Clare Strang could probably afford to move near his cousin and future News Corp boss Lachlan Murdoch in Bellevue Hill while Whispers awaits with baited breath to see just who the new tenants in Bronte House will be. Hopefully they'll be the entertaining kind.

Leo Schofield             Margaret Olley                            Richard Tognetti                    Simon Tedeschi

Is The Family Turning on Rupert?

With perfect timing a new book has just been published by Murdoch Books- Making News by Melbourne sport's journalist Tony Wilson.

Murdoch Books is owned by Sydneysider Matt Handbury who is the son of the late Helen Handbury, Rupert Murdoch's older sister. When Sir Keith Murdoch died in 1952 he left the Adelaide Advertiser, his only newspaper to son Rupert and a small publishing firm to Helen who subsequently passed that firm on to Matt.

Matt Handbury built the company into highly successful publishers of  magazines and books selling off the magazine section in 2004 for $77M to Perth media mogul Kerry Stokes.

The London Evening Standard says Making News is a  thinly disguised novel which is highly critical of the behaviour of news-hounds in Australia and Britain

Says author Wilson : “The phone hacking scandal is right on topic for my second novel, Making  News. Phone hacking is an important part of the plot, albeit in the sense that the hacked know they’re being hacked, and deliberately spread misinformation to the tabloids in the hope of a defamation success. It’s a satire of British tabloid misbehaviour.
In the first half of the book, a young ‘weekend trainee’ learns the standard hack tricks. In the second, the trainee’s celebrity father is caught up in a sex scandal that sweeps the world, and motivates the trainee to seek revenge against his mentors. The main inspiration for the novel was a memoir by a celebrated tabloid editor.”

Matt Handbury & former wife Fiona

The diarist who penned the Standard piece says: " As a publisher, Handbury has not previously been critical of his uncle. But maybe he feels Murdoch’s days of influence and power are on the wane".

But it's been long rumoured around town that the Murdochs and Handburys aren't the greatest of friends.

Clare & Matt Handbury

The Shuttle recalls attending a party at the magnificent harbour side mansion Altona when the Handbury's owned it and asking Fiona Handbury-then married to Matt , if they would be attending the wedding of Lachlan Murdoch and model Sarah O'Hare.

"Certainly not " replied Fiona, "Matt and I are regularly forgotten when it comes to family invitations. The only one we seem to get is the annual family get-together organised by Dame Elisabeth Murdoch at Cruden Farm"

Matt and Fiona divorced in 2000 and Fiona received Altona as part of a divorce settlement promptly selling it for $29M to publisher Deke Miskin (it's currently on the market for a reported $60M).
Fiona-now the Countess of Dartmouth married William Legge, the 10th Earl of Dartmouth and the grandson of the legendary romance novelist Dame Barbara Cartland.

Matt Handbury married Clare Strang in 2002 and they now live in the beautiful council owned Bronte House overlooking Bronte Beach on a 50 year lease. Once a year they are obliged to open Bronte House's splendid gardens for public viewing.