Governor-General Sir Peter Cosgrove to swap Admiralty House for nearby $2.2m digs

When Sir Peter Cosgrove steps down as Australia’s governor-general in June, he and his wife Lady Lynne Cosgrove will move out of the official vice-regal residence Admiralty House on the Kirribilli waterfront – but they won’t go far.

Records show the Cosgroves have bought a three-bedroom apartment in the nearby Pinnacle building for $2.25 million. It will be a downsize from the Victorian Regency and Italianate sandstone manor that has been home for the past five years.

The new apartment will share a fraction of the harbour views claimed by their nearby vice-regal residence, but includes a far more contemporary finish, with marble bathrooms, granite kitchen and access to the building’s lap pool, gym, sauna and spa.

The Milsons Point apartment was listed with a $2.25 million guide by Nigel Mukhi, of Di Jones, before it sold for the full asking price to the Cosgroves in March, and more recently settled in their name.

The Cosgroves were already lower north shore locals before Sir Peter was sworn in as governor-general in early 2014 and moved into the official Sydney residence.

The couple owned a three-bedroom townhouse in Neutral Bay they bought in 2007 for $1.95 million, two years after Sir Peter ended his term as chief of the Defence Force and the year after he was asked to lead a taskforce helping to rebuild Queensland communities decimated after Cyclone Larry in 2006.

The townhouse was sold in late 2014 for $2.1 million.

Admiralty House was originally called Wotonga when it was built as a single-storey residence on a waterfront land parcel at the tip of Kirribilli in 1842 by Lieutenant-Colonel John Gibbes, the NSW collector of customs, and numerous extensions were carried out until the 1920s.

The colonial government bought it in 1885 as a residence for the admiral of the day, and renamed it Admiralty House.

Australia’s next governor-general will be David Hurley, the NSW governor and former defence force chief.