David and Skye Leckie almost double their money in Woollahra thanks to $17m sale

Legendary former television boss David Leckie and his charity-queen wife Skye have cashed in on Sydney’s high-end house price boom, selling their Woollahra residence for more than $17 million.

The exact sale price remains unknown, but at that level, the result is almost double what they paid for the property less than five years ago.

The Holdsworth Street property was known as the Yellow House in the 1990s when owned by radio broadcaster Doug Mulray, but was rebuilt as a contemporary four-bedroom residence with a swimming pool a decade ago when owned by architect Jeffrey Temple.

The Leckies purchased the 465-square-metre property as a downsizer in late 2016 for $9 million while they were trying to sell their long-held Federation mansion, Lactura, in Centennial Park. It sold the following year for $10.5 million.

David Leckie was a long-time senior executive and eventually chief at the Nine Network under the late Kerry Packer before he took the top job at rival Seven West Media until 2012. He returned to Seven last year as a part-time consultant working with his former protege James Warburton.

Leckie is predominantly based in the Southern Highlands at his Mulberry Farm property, but also owns a getaway in Noosa and last November bought a $2 million apartment around the corner from his Woollahra residence.

Local sources say Leckie sold the house on the quiet for more than $17 million, and one source put the result at closer to $18 million, but with no comment forthcoming from the agent tipped to have negotiated the deal, PPD’s Alexander Phillips, it will be left to settlement to reveal the exact result.

Woollahra’s record was set at $18.5 million in March last year when a landmark residence long owned by the German government was bought by tech billionaire Mike Cannon-Brookes.

The Leckie sale comes amid one of the strongest housing booms in Sydney’s history, up 8.5 per cent in the year to March. Woollahra has done even better, with house values up 8.7 per cent to a median of $3.26 million.