Former Nine boss David Gyngell buys Bellevue Hill penthouse
The former Channel 9 boss David Gyngell and his television presenter wife Leila McKinnon have bought back in the Sydney market.
Their $4.5 million Bellevue Hill purchase came a year after they pocketed $8.4 million from the delayed settlement sale of their Dover Heights home.
The couple spend most of their time these days in the Byron Bay hinterland, enjoying family life and attending to a Northern Rivers tourism property empire, focused around the Hotel Brunswick.
The Sydney bolthole was bought by a company directed by the pair, the same company which owns a Bondi investment apartment.
Gyngell and McKinnon are expected to use the luxury apartment in the 1900s residential block Villa Rossmore as their Sydney base.
Marketed as a stunning residence with house-like propositions, the apartment spans 200 sqm with its own manicured private garden.
The sale is the biggest in Villa Rossmore since mid-2017 when Alceon Group founding partner Morris Symonds spent $5.5 million on his four bedroom duplex-like apartment.
Gyngell, the son of the late legendary Channel 9 boss Bruce Gyngell, had bought the clifftop oceanfront Wentworth Street, Dover Heights home for $1.15 million in 1998 when it was a 1940s cottage.
His sister Briony Fitzgerald and mother Anne helped design the mansion after its $1.5 million 2014 rebuild, which was then featured in Belle magazine.
“Every room, including the bathrooms, captures views of the ocean, coast or harbour in the distance. On a clear day you can see from Palm Beach to Wollongong,” the magazine reported.
Their off-market buyers in the deal, done a year before its settlement, were Adam and Alex Somerville from North Bondi, who are in the business of retirement villages.
The media couple retain their renovated Bondi Beach investment property.